Designate completed the migration from eventlet to native Python threading across all services as part of the broader OpenStack de-eventlet effort.

Ironic now supports NFS and CIFS/SMB transport protocols for Redfish Virtual Media boot with automatic protocol detection from BMC capabilities. Operators can configure shares via new [nfs] and [cifs] configuration sections, with per-node overrides available through driver_info.

Two new deploy interfaces have been added. The autodetect deploy interface eliminates manual specification by selecting the most suitable concrete interface based on image metadata and node configuration. The noop deploy interface allows nodes to be marked active without performing OS deployment, enabling adoption of pre-existing deployments and tracking of externally managed nodes in Ironic’s inventory.

A new standalone networking service enables Ironic to manage physical network switch configurations for bare metal nodes without requiring Neutron. Running independently from the main conductor, this service enables network management for standalone Ironic deployments.

The networking-generic-switch and networking-baremetal projects now support VXLAN and Geneve overlay networks for bare metal nodes. Networking-baremetal facilitates the attachment with OVN, and pairs with netowrking-generic-switch to facilitate VXLAN VNI attachments. See documentation for these projects for more detailed information.

Trait-based port scheduling enables more flexible and automated network configuration, allowing ports to be scheduled based on traits and physical network attributes, improving multi-network bare metal deployments.

Redfish inspection has reached parity with in-band agent inspection by gaining the ability to inspect PCI bus, disk controllers, LLDP, and more system and NIC details.

A new environment variable named OS_MANILA_DISABLE_EVENTLET_PATCHING was introduced to allow running the manila scheduler, data and share services in native threading mode instead of eventlet’s green threads. The manila-api service is unaffected when deployed behind an external WSGI server. This option is being introduced as a technology preview. A future release of Manila will remove eventlet entirely and rely on native threads. We do not recommend using this in production environments yet.

Users can now set and unset metadata on share replicas. Such metadata can be used by the storage driver to determine replication strategies.

Introduced support for QoS type and QoS type specs. Administrators can now define performance limits such as throughput or IOPS throttling using either share type extra-specs or the new dedicated QoS type entities.

The Dell PowerScale driver now offers supports for deduplication, manage, unmanage, shrinking shares and mounting snapshots.

Users can now specify a custom export location when managing a share. This ensures that the share retains a predictable mount path after being adopted by Manila.

A back end driver for HPE Alletra MP B10000 is now available.

The NetApp ONTAP driver now supports synchronous replication policies and aggregate level encryption.

It is now possible to boot the the generic driver’s service instances from a cinder volume in DHSS=True mode using either an image or a cinder volume.

The Manila V1 API has been removed.

The Manila shell utility has been removed.

The Manila UI now supports manipulating metadata for share snapshots, share networks and export locations.

Zone migration strategies now have enhanced testing enabled, supporting cross-zone instance movements for improved workload distribution and high availability scenarios.

ActionPlan cancellation behavior has been standardized across threading and eventlet modes, ensuring consistent and predictable handling of in-flight operations during maintenance activities.

The API, Decision Engine, and Applier now all support native threading as an alternative to Eventlet. This experimental native threading mode, enables better operational visibility and health tracking of Watcher’s execution components.

Nova client integration has been modernized with wrapper classes that provide cleaner interfaces and handle OpenStack extension attributes transparently. Finally, the migration to openstacksdk is now complete.

A new automatic skipping mechanism has been included into all Watcher action types. This feature identifies non-viable execution conditions upfront, marking actions as skipped to prevent unnecessary ‘Failed’ actions and ensure more accurate reporting of optimization results.

Watcher now supports deploying multiple instances in active-active configurations for both the Decision Engine and the Applier services. This enhancement is underpinned by the introduction of dedicated service monitors designed to track the health of each instance and trigger automated recovery workflows, such as re-queuing pending audits or cancelling stale action plans, to ensure continuous optimization without manual intervention.