diff --git a/magnum/drivers/k8s_fedora_atomic_v1/templates/kubecluster.yaml b/magnum/drivers/k8s_fedora_atomic_v1/templates/kubecluster.yaml
index c877afb2de..2c17aaa13c 100644
--- a/magnum/drivers/k8s_fedora_atomic_v1/templates/kubecluster.yaml
+++ b/magnum/drivers/k8s_fedora_atomic_v1/templates/kubecluster.yaml
@@ -110,8 +110,8 @@ parameters:
   flannel_backend:
     type: string
     description: >
-      specify the backend for flannel, default udp backend
-    default: "udp"
+      specify the backend for flannel, default vxlan backend
+    default: "vxlan"
     constraints:
       - allowed_values: ["udp", "vxlan", "host-gw"]
 
diff --git a/releasenotes/notes/using-vxlan-for-flannel-backend-8d82a290ca97d6e2.yaml b/releasenotes/notes/using-vxlan-for-flannel-backend-8d82a290ca97d6e2.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..2309e9871b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/releasenotes/notes/using-vxlan-for-flannel-backend-8d82a290ca97d6e2.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+---
+other:
+  - |
+    The default value of flannel_backend will be replaced with `vxlan` which
+    was `udp` based on the recommendation at
+    https://github.com/coreos/flannel/blob/master/Documentation/backends.md