Backport changes from master to 2.12 branch

This MR backports the changes done to the master branch to the 2.12 branch.

The MR was generated by the following command:

git cherry-pick \
  87c09af62dbb2541d70cc7da0619e25d03b2b25c \
  67f23037189fa81e4263075c797071e90544a89f \
  561de21fea1b3724eac45648a53f7e8e6080aedd \
  dc5d9d83acfab84f4eca16477894fea190970ae0

Backport of these MRs:

• !36 (merged): 87c09af6
• !37 (merged): 67f23037
• !40 (merged): 561de21f
• !41 (merged): dc5d9d83

approved this merge request

LGTM!

enabled an automatic merge when the pipeline for b30db893 succeeds

mentioned in commit 489d409b

merged