The Consul Team has announced the release of Consul 1.5.0, a multi-cloud service networking platform that enables connecting, securing and configuring services across any runtime platform and public or private cloud. This release introduces several major new features, including L7 observability and load balancing via Envoy integration, Expressive Filtering support for HTTP APIs, Centralized Configuration for managing proxy defaults, and ACL enhancements with expiration times, roles, service identity mappings and auth methods. Additionally, the UI has been improved with live updates, a better search interface, visibility of Connect proxies, and bug fixes. The release also includes support for Azure Snapshot Agent, removal of the legacy UI, and migration of Consul Guides to HashiCorp Learn.