If you’re using a managed Kubernetes service, you’ve probably seen rolling updates while upgrading the node OS, Kubernetes version, kubelet configs, and rotating certificates.

But what if you're running clusters on bare metal or have nodes with locally attached persistent storage that you can't just toss aside during a rolling update?

Yeah… suddenly, that “just replace the node” strategy doesn’t look so good.

In this session, we’ll walk you through a new In-Place upgrade strategy built into Gardener, designed exactly for these kinds of setups.

Gardener achieves in-place upgrades by:

* Using Gardenlinux’s native in-place OS update support
* Coordinating node drain and update orchestration through Machine Controller Manager
* Running a node-local agent that carefully sequences updates across the node stack

We'll explore how it works under the hood, why it’s efficient for limited VM environments, and how you can precisely control the rollout.