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OpenTelemetry Observability

OTel

OpenTelemetry (OTel)

  • is: an open-source standard for collecting/exporting telemetry data

  • purpose: to provide observability into apps

Key Concepts

  • Unified Standard: 1 way to collect logs/metrics/traces

  • Vendor Neutral: OTel's flexible exporter system allows you to switch monitoring backends

unified framework, with these components:

APIs (for developers)

You instrument code once. The API defines what telemetry you emit without deciding where it goes.

SDKs (for instrumentation)

The SDK decides how telemetry is produced: sampling, aggregation, batching, context propagation

OTLP (the standard protocol + data model)

A single, canonical wire format. Every signal uses the same model and transport, so components interoperate predictably.

Collector (for processing and exporting)

A standalone pipeline. It receives OTLP, processes it (filter, transform, enrich), and exports it to any backend. Apps don’t talk to vendors.

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