Linkerd 2.20: Rate-limit-aware load balancing, reduced memory usage and more

Linkerd is an open-source "service mesh" — a layer of infrastructure that handles communication between microservices in Kubernetes (the container-orchestration system that runs most cloud-native applications). The Linkerd project is maintained by Buoyant, the company founded by the original creators of the technology. Key context for this release: - Trust anchor rotation: In a service mesh, encrypted connections rely on certificates. Previously, rotating the root certificate (trust anchor) required downtime or complex procedures; 2.20 automates this, a major operational improvement for security compliance. - Rate-limit-aware load balancing: Traditional load balancing distributes traffic blindly; this new feature uses feedback from the destination service (e.g., HTTP 429 "Too Many Requests" responses) to back off, preventing cascading failures. This addresses a long-standing pain point in microservices reliability. - Windows VM support: Linkerd now works on Windows nodes, expanding its reach beyond the Linux-only ecosystem that most service meshes target. - Reduced memory usage: Improvements of 30-50% in proxy memory consumption lower operating costs at scale.