@pedroigor LGTM, so approved, but can you pls doublecheck if the failing cross-dc tests are somewhat related to your changes? I guess not, but not sure.

Tested:

1. improvement of startup time ("pragmatic" performance test on my machine):

• executed: repeat 10 { command time -p ./kc.sh -Dkc.launch.mode=test start-dev }
• result: times were between 3.2s and 3.5s after initial db creation, more to the 3.2 side, best was 3.251ms to startup. So yes, makes it faster :) before it was more ~3.4 to 3.7

2. See if caches still work due to dependency change

• Checked with a singleDC deployment with external ispn 12. Worked as expected. I assume you checked the usual cachingscenario on your side after changing the dependencies.