Best of OpenTelemetry — 2024

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   Article

   Community Picks·2y

   5 Tips for Structured Logging in Spring Boot 3.4

   Spring Boot 3.4 introduces native support for structured logging using formats like Elastic Common Schema (ECS) and Logstash. This reduces dependency management and enhances observability in applications by capturing logs in a structured manner. The post emphasizes the importance of logs in understanding application behavior, particularly in distributed systems, and highlights best practices for logging. It also underscores the role of tools like OpenTelemetry and Digma in achieving comprehensive observability.

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   Article

   The New Stack·2y

   What Is OpenTelemetry? The Ultimate Guide

   OpenTelemetry is a vendor-neutral, standardized approach to capturing observability data like metrics, logs, and traces. It allows integration of various observability tools into a unified system, providing a consistent framework for capturing and analyzing telemetry data. Key components include the API/SDKs, automatic instrumentation agents, and the widely used OpenTelemetry Collector. Fundamental to observability are the golden signals: latency, traffic, errors, and saturation, which are essential for effective system performance analysis. OpenTelemetry's future development aims to enhance client-side instrumentation and extend its capabilities across diverse platforms.

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3. 3
   Article

   Prometheus·2y

   Announcing Prometheus 3.0

   Prometheus 3.0 is now available, marking the first major release in seven years. Key updates include a new UI, Remote Write 2.0, UTF-8 support, and enhanced interoperability with OpenTelemetry. Native histograms are introduced as an experimental feature. The release also includes some breaking changes, so users are encouraged to review the migration guide. Performance improvements and upcoming features were also highlighted.

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   Article

   Hacker News·2y

   Open-source DataDog + PostHog for AI agents / RAG apps. Fast, reliable and insightful. Written in Rust 🦀. YC S24.

   Laminar is an OpenTelemetry-based framework designed for easy instrumentation of LLM and vector DB calls. Featuring semantic events-based analytics, Laminar turns pipeline outputs into insightful metrics. Built with Rust and incorporating RabbitMQ, Postgres, and Clickhouse, it aims to provide scalable and efficient event and trace analytics. Users can start quickly with a managed platform or set up locally using Docker Compose.

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   Video

   Nick Chapsas·2y

   The Logging Everyone Should Be Using in .NET

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   Article

   Grafana Labs·2y

   Prometheus 3.0 and OpenTelemetry: a practical guide to storing and querying OTel data

   Prometheus 3.0 aims to improve integration with OpenTelemetry by addressing challenges such as resource attributes, UTF-8 support, and temporalities. The Prometheus 3.0 release includes features like promoting resource attributes to metric labels, a new `info` PromQL function, and stable OTLP support for easier data ingestion and querying. Users can also utilize the delta to cumulative processor in OTel Collector for better data handling. Future developments will focus on enhancing interoperability and scalability.

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   Article

   Grafana Labs·2y

   How to instrument your Python application using OpenTelemetry

   Learn how to instrument your Python application using OpenTelemetry and visualize the data in Grafana Cloud's Application Observability. Follow the steps to create a Python application and configure it for OpenTelemetry.

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   Article

   Hacker News·2y

   hyperdxio/hyperdx at v2

   HyperDX enables engineers to debug production issues quickly by offering an easy way to search and visualize logs and traces on any Clickhouse cluster. It supports schema-agnostic setups, offers blazing-fast searches, intuitive full-text and property search, and native JSON querying. HyperDX is compatible with OpenTelemetry and supports multiple programming languages and platforms. It is available in beta for local use and as a hosted cloud service. HyperDX aims to simplify observability and mitigate the shortcomings of existing tools by being cost-effective, user-friendly, and integrative.

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   Article

   Last9·1y

   Kafka with OpenTelemetry: Distributed Tracing Guide

   Integrating Apache Kafka with OpenTelemetry enhances system observability and performance by enabling end-to-end distributed tracing and capturing essential metrics like message throughput and consumer lag. This integration helps track how messages flow through Kafka, identify bottlenecks, improve error detection, and optimize performance, particularly in cloud-native and microservices architectures.

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    Article

    Unzip·2y

    📡 OpenTelemetry

    OpenTelemetry is a standardized framework for generating and processing telemetry data. It supports distributed tracing, observability, and offers a variety of SDKs for continuous profiling, instrumentation, and exporting. It allows for standardized data collection without vendor lock-in. However, there may be potential overhead, limited support for packages without auto-instrumentation, a learning curve, and it is still an early-stage project.

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    Article

    Last9·2y

    Kubernetes Observability with OpenTelemetry Operator

    The OpenTelemetry Operator enhances observability in Kubernetes clusters by simplifying the deployment and management of telemetry pipelines. It automates tasks such as scaling collectors, exporting telemetry data, and instrumentation. Key features include various deployment modes, custom pipelines, scalability, and auto-instrumentation. Best practices involve starting small, using CRDs for configurations, monitoring collector health, isolating telemetry pipelines by namespaces, and using metrics for scaling.

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    Article

    AWS Fundamentals·2y

    OpenTelemetry on AWS: Observability at Scale with Open-Source

    Learn how to implement an observability stack on AWS using OpenTelemetry, CloudWatch, and AWS X-Ray for serverless applications. This guide walks through configuring AWS Lambda for trace and log collection, and how the AWS Distro for OpenTelemetry provides a secure, production-ready solution for instrumenting applications with minimal code changes.

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    Article

    Last9·2y

    OpenTelemetry Collector: The Complete Guide

    OpenTelemetry provides a vendor-agnostic observability framework suitable for distributed systems. The OpenTelemetry Collector, or otelcol, allows for the receipt, processing, and export of telemetry data in diverse formats. It supports multiple protocols and can replace the need for multiple monitoring agents. Key benefits include vendor neutrality, data transformation, scalability, and cost reduction. Use cases range from microservices monitoring to legacy system integration. Advanced topics cover custom processors, high availability setups, and performance tuning. The guide also compares the Collector with Jaeger and emphasizes best practices for effective deployment.

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    Video

    Community Picks·2y

    Mastering Distributed Tracing with Serilog and Seq in .NET

    Milan demonstrates using Serilog and Seq for structured logging and distributed tracing in a .NET environment. He uses three API applications: Stocks API, Risk Management API, and Reporting API. The process involves creating orders, logging the interactions, installing necessary packages, configuring Serilog, and setting up OpenTelemetry for distributed tracing. Finally, he shows how to visualize and analyze the logs and traces in Seq.

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    Article

    Prometheus·2y

    Prometheus 3.0 Beta Released

    Prometheus 3.0-beta is now available for testing, featuring a completely rewritten UI, enhancements to Remote Write 2.0, expanded OpenTelemetry support, and experimental Native Histograms. Users are encouraged to test the beta and report any issues for a more stable final release. Notable additions include support for UTF-8 characters in metric and label names, and new configurations for OTLP ingestion.

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    Article

    A Java geek·2y

    OpenTelemetry Tracing on Spring Boot, Java Agent vs. Micrometer Tracing

    The post discusses the implementation of OpenTelemetry Tracing in Spring Boot applications, comparing three methods: Java Agent v1, Java Agent v2, and Micrometer Tracing. It provides a detailed breakdown of how each approach works, the infrastructure needed, and the code changes required to implement tracing. The post highlights that while Micrometer Tracing integrates seamlessly with Spring Boot and GraalVM, the Java Agent requires minimal code changes but has different behaviors between its versions. The post also emphasizes the advantages and limitations of each approach.

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    Article

    Grafana Labs·2y

    Java observability with OpenTelemetry, Grafana Cloud, and Digma.ai

    Modern observability tools like OpenTelemetry and platforms such as Grafana Cloud are making it easier for developers to proactively monitor their application's performance. By integrating these tools with specialized solutions like Digma.ai, developers can shorten the feedback loop, identifying and addressing issues more swiftly. The post describes how to connect a Spring Boot application to Grafana Cloud and configure Digma.ai for continuous feedback within the IDE, enhancing the development lifecycle with runtime code analysis.

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    Article

    Community Picks·2y

    Spring Boot 3.3: Top 7 Observability Enhancements

    Spring Boot 3.3 introduces several observability enhancements, including updates to Rabbit, Jersey, Micrometer, OpenTelemetry, Brave, Zipkin, and Prometheus. New properties and changed properties are also included.

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    Article

    Grafana Labs·2y

    CI/CD observability: A rich, new opportunity for OpenTelemetry

    Continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) are central to modern software delivery, but observability in these processes remains limited. OpenTelemetry (OTel) is changing this by enabling deeper visibility throughout the whole CI/CD pipeline, from building and testing to deploying. Shifting observability focus 'left' helps detect and address issues early, increasing efficiency and reducing downtime. The introduction of new semantic conventions and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for CI/CD observability marks a significant step forward in this area.

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    Article

    freeCodeCamp·2y

    How to Use OpenTelementry to Trace Node.js Applications

    Learn how to use OpenTelementry to trace Node.js applications effortlessly. Understand the importance of observability, the benefits of using OpenTelementry, and how to set it up for your Node.js application.

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    Article

    OpenTelemetry·1y

    OpenTelemetry for Generative AI

    OpenTelemetry is being enhanced to support the needs of generative AI, focusing on ensuring reliable performance, efficiency, and safety. The development includes Semantic Conventions and Instrumentation Libraries, initially targeting the OpenAI Python API library. These tools standardize telemetry data for better monitoring, troubleshooting, and optimizing AI models. Key signals like Traces, Metrics, and Events provide insights into AI model behavior, supporting cost management and performance tuning. Community collaboration is encouraged to further evolve generative AI observability.

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    Article

    Grafana Labs·1y

    How to use OpenTelemetry and Grafana Alloy to convert delta to cumulative at scale

    Migrating to a Prometheus-based ecosystem with Grafana Alloy, which integrates OpenTelemetry, makes handling metrics easier, especially when converting delta metrics to cumulative ones. This post details the algorithm used for this conversion and outlines the load balancing and container setup necessary for scalable deployment. It also mentions recent updates to the OpenTelemetry Collector, making the process more efficient and scalable.

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    Article

    OpenTelemetry·2y

    OpenTelemetry Java Metrics Performance Comparison

    OpenTelemetry aims to provide a universal observability standard, offering tools for traces, metrics, and logs across various languages. This post zooms in on the performance of the OpenTelemetry Java metrics SDK, especially focusing on the crucial aspects of recording and exporting metrics. By aggregating measurements, this system reduces data footprint while maintaining performance. The post also benchmarks OpenTelemetry Java against Micrometer and Prometheus, showcasing its superior memory allocation efficiency during metrics collection and export, particularly when attributes are not known ahead of time.

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    Article

    DevOps.com·2y

    OpenTelemetry Isn’t the Hero We Need: Here’s Why it’s Failing our Stack

    OpenTelemetry was intended to be a unified standard for collecting and correlating traces, logs, and metrics from distributed systems. However, it has become bloated and inefficient due to corporate influence and feature creep. In contrast, eBPF, operating at the kernel level, provides real-time, low-overhead observability and granular insights without the same drawbacks. While OpenTelemetry offers a big-picture view useful for distributed tracing, eBPF excels in detailed system performance insights. Combining both could provide comprehensive observability.

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    Article

    Grafana Labs·1y

    OpenTelemetry: past, present, and future

    Juraci Paixão Kröhling and Daniel Gomez Blanco from the OpenTelemetry Governance Committee discuss the framework's ability to instrument, collect, process, and transport telemetry data in a standard, vendor-neutral format. They highlight its importance in cloud-native systems for unifying metrics, logs, and traces to provide better insights. Strategies for choosing the right telemetry, the challenges of adoption, and the latest developments in OpenTelemetry, like profiling and refactoring resource attributes, are explored.

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