<p>I had some trouble understanding the documentation regarding upgrading versions for GKE clusters and nodes. <a href="https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/docs/concepts/cluster-upgrades#cluster_upgrades" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/docs/concepts/cluster-upgrades#cluster_upgrades</a></p>

<p>Why does a cluster need its own version? </p>

Daniel Kobe
<blockquote>
  <p>Why does a cluster need its own version?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Technically "cluster version" is a control plane components version. </p>

<p>Because K8s doesn't require you to have the same version of K8s on nodes and masters, it has 2 separate "updates" -  update a version of control plane components and update a version of nodes (per node group).</p>
