diff --git a/docs/reference/release-notes/highlights.asciidoc b/docs/reference/release-notes/highlights.asciidoc
index f42083555a8..d836e2828d0 100644
--- a/docs/reference/release-notes/highlights.asciidoc
+++ b/docs/reference/release-notes/highlights.asciidoc
@@ -23,7 +23,27 @@ Other versions:
 | {ref-bare}/7.1/release-highlights-7.1.0.html[7.1]
 | {ref-bare}/7.0/release-highlights-7.0.0.html[7.0]
 
+// tag::notable-highlights[]
+[discrete]
+[[data-tier-formalization]]
+=== Data Tier Formalization
+7.10 introduces the concept of formalized data tiers within Elasticsearch. <<data-tiers,Data tiers>>
+are a simple, integrated approach that gives users control over optimizing for cost,
+performance, and breadth/depth of data. Prior to this formalization, many users configured their own
+tier topology using custom node attributes as well as using {ilm-init} to manage the lifecycle and
+location of data within a cluster.
 
+With this formalization, data tiers (content, hot, warm, and cold) can be explicitly configured
+using <<node-roles,node roles>>, and indices can be configured to be allocated within a specific
+tier using <<data-tier-shard-filtering,index-level data tier allocation filtering>>. {ilm-init} will
+make use of these tiers to <<ilm-migrate,automatically migrate>> data between nodes as an index goes
+through the phases of its lifecycle.
+
+Newly created indices abstracted by a <<data-streams,data stream>> will be allocated to
+the `data_hot` tier automatically, while standalone indices will be allocated to
+the `data_content` tier automatically. Nodes with the pre-existing `data` role are 
+considered to be part of all tiers.
+// end::notable-highlights[]
 
 // Use the notable-highlights tag to mark entries that
 // should be featured in the Stack Installation and Upgrade Guide: