# Velero v1.18.0-rc.2

- Product: Velero (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/velero)
- Vendor: VMware Tanzu
- Date: 2026-03-03
- Version: v1.18.0-rc.2
- Original notes: https://github.com/velero-io/velero/releases/tag/v1.18.0-rc.2
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/velero/releases/v1.18.0-rc.2
- Labels: Pre-release

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

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- **added** — Velero is now capable of processing multiple backups concurrently, allowing backups from different users to run simultaneously without interfering with each other
- **added** — Users can now configure cache volumes for data mover pods during restore for CSI snapshot data movement and fs-backup
- **added** — Velero allows users to observe the incremental size of data movers backups for CSI snapshot data movement and fs-backup
- **added** — Glob regular expressions are now supported for namespace filters during backup and restore
- **added** — VolumePolicy now supports actions by PVC phase to allow special operations for PVCs with specific phases
- **added** — Events are now recorded into data mover pod diagnostic for better troubleshooting
- **added** — BackupStorageLocation now supports Secret-based CA certificate configuration
- **added** — Add --apply flag to install command to allow usage of Kubernetes apply for making changes to existing installs
- **added** — Prometheus metrics are now available for maintenance jobs
- **changed** — Backup repository operations are now delay executed outside of Velero server to prevent OOM kill for large backup repositories
- **changed** — VolumePolicy performance is significantly improved for large numbers of pods and PVCs
- **changed** — Maintenance job now only uses the first element of the LoadAffinity array
- **changed** — Role, RoleBinding, ClusterRole, and ClusterRoleBinding are now added in restore sequence
- **changed** — VolumeSnapshotClass is now removed from CSI backup and restore process
- **fixed** — Fix backup removal from running list when backup fails validation
- **fixed** — Fix plugin init container names exceeding DNS-1123 limit
- **fixed** — Fix multiple restore exec hooks recording by using hookIndex
- **fixed** — Sanitize Azure HTTP responses in BackupStorageLocation status messages
- **deprecated** — PVC selected node feature is deprecated in v1.18

##### v1.18

###### Download
https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/velero/releases/tag/v1.18.0-rc.2

###### Container Image
`velero/velero:v1.18.0-rc.2`

###### Documentation
https://velero.io/docs/v1.18/

###### Upgrading
https://velero.io/docs/v1.18/upgrade-to-1.18/

###### Highlights
###### Concurrent backup
In v1.18, Velero is capable to process multiple backups concurrently. This is a significant usability improvement, especially for multiple tenants or multiple users case, backups submitted from different users could run their backups simultaneously without interfering with each other.  

Check design https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/velero/blob/main/design/Implemented/concurrent-backup-processing.md for more details.

###### Cache volume for data movers
In v1.18, Velero allows users to configure cache volumes for data mover pods during restore for CSI snapshot data movement and fs-backup. This brings below benefits:
- Solve the problem that data mover pods fail to when pod's ephemeral disk is limited
- Solve the problem that multiple data mover pods fail to run concurrently in one node when the node's ephemeral disk is limited
- Working together with backup repository's cache limit configuration, cache volume with appropriate size helps to improve the restore throughput

Check design https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/velero/blob/main/design/Implemented/backup-repo-cache-volume.md for more details.

###### Incremental size for data movers
In v1.18, Velero allows users to observe the incremental size of data movers backups for CSI snapshot data movement and fs-backup, so that users could visually see the data reduction due to incremental backup.

###### Wildcard support for namespaces
In v1.18, Velero allows to use Glob regular expressions for namespace filters during backup and restore, so that users could filter namespaces in a batch manner.

###### VolumePolicy for PVC phase
In v1.18, Velero VolumePolicy supports actions by PVC phase, which help users to do special operations for PVCs with a specific phase, e.g., skip PVCs in Pending/Lost status from the backup.  

###### Scalability and Resiliency improvements
###### Prevent Velero server OOM Kill for large backup repositories
In v1.18, some backup repository operations are delay executed out of Velero server, so Velero server won't be OOM Killed.

###### Performance improvement for VolumePolicy
In v1.18, VolumePolicy is enhanced for large number of pods/PVCs so that the performance is significantly improved.

###### Events for data mover pod diagnostic
In v1.18, events are recorded into data mover pod diagnostic, which allows user to see more information for troubleshooting when the data mover pod fails.

###### Runtime and dependencies
Golang runtime: 1.25.7  
kopia: 0.22.3

###### Limitations/Known issues

###### Breaking changes
###### Deprecation of PVC selected node feature
According to [Velero deprecation policy](https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/velero/blob/main/GOVERNANCE.md#deprecation-policy), PVC selected node feature is deprecated in v1.18. Velero could appropriately handle PVC's selected-node annotation, so users don't need to do anything particularly.

###### All Changes
* Remove backup from running list when backup fails validation (#9498, @sseago)
* Maintenance Job only uses the first element of the LoadAffinity array (#9494, @blackpiglet)
* Fix issue #9478, add diagnose info on expose peek fails (#9481, @Lyndon-Li)
* Add Role, RoleBinding, ClusterRole, and ClusterRoleBinding in restore sequence. (#9474, @blackpiglet)
* Add maintenance job and data mover pod's labels and annotations setting. (#9452, @blackpiglet)
* Fix plugin init container names exceeding DNS-1123 limit (#9445, @mpryc)
* Add PVC-to-Pod cache to improve volume policy performance (#9441, @shubham-pampattiwar)
* Remove VolumeSnapshotClass from CSI B/R process. (#9431, @blackpiglet)
* Use hookIndex for recording multiple restore exec

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