Prepare release v1.8.1

Signed-off-by: Leonid Kondrashov <leo.kondrashov@gmail.com>

Prepare v1.8

Signed-off-by: Leonid Kondrashov <leo.kondrashov@gmail.com>

Release v1.7.1

Signed-off-by: lrq619 <lrq619@outlook.com>

Bump versions in tests

Signed-off-by: Leonid Kondrashov <leo.kondrashov@gmail.com>

bump node.js version to 20

Signed-off-by: JooYoung Park <jooyoung.park73@gmail.com>

Update changelog for v1.6 release

Signed-off-by: Leonid Kondrashov <leo.kondrashov@gmail.com>

update calico to v3.25.1

Signed-off-by: Haoyuan Ma <flyinghorse0510@zju.edu.cn>

Knative upgrade to v1.4

Signed-off-by: Lazar Cvetković <l.cvetkovic.997@gmail.com>

update cri runner kind image to v1.20.7

Signed-off-by: Shyam Jesal <s.jesalpura@gmail.com>

Updated docs

* removed benchmarking docs
* updated the quickstart and dev guides, readme,and changelog

Signed-off-by: Dmitrii Ustiugov <dmitrii.ustiugov@epfl.ch>