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Check out this week’s o11y newsletter with excellent OpenTelemetry hands-on material:
🔗 OpenTelemetry Observability Newsletter
You Should Know:
1. Setting Up OpenTelemetry Collector
To collect telemetry data (metrics, logs, traces), deploy the OpenTelemetry Collector:
Download OpenTelemetry Collector wget https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/releases/download/v0.60.0/otelcol_0.60.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz tar -xvf otelcol_0.60.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz ./otelcol --config=config.yaml
Example `config.yaml`:
receivers: otlp: protocols: grpc: http: exporters: logging: loglevel: debug service: pipelines: traces: receivers: [bash] exporters: [bash]
2. Instrumenting a Python App with OpenTelemetry
Install the required packages:
pip install opentelemetry-api opentelemetry-sdk opentelemetry-exporter-otlp
Sample Python code:
from opentelemetry import trace
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace import TracerProvider
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace.export import BatchSpanProcessor
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.grpc.trace_exporter import OTLPSpanExporter
trace.set_tracer_provider(TracerProvider())
tracer = trace.get_tracer(<strong>name</strong>)
otlp_exporter = OTLPSpanExporter(endpoint="http://localhost:4317", insecure=True)
span_processor = BatchSpanProcessor(otlp_exporter)
trace.get_tracer_provider().add_span_processor(span_processor)
with tracer.start_as_current_span("hello-world"):
print("Hello, OpenTelemetry!")
3. Querying Traces with Jaeger
Deploy Jaeger for visualization:
docker run -d --name jaeger \ -e COLLECTOR_OTLP_ENABLED=true \ -p 16686:16686 \ -p 4317:4317 \ jaegertracing/all-in-one:latest
Access Jaeger UI at `http://localhost:16686`.
4. Monitoring Metrics with Prometheus
Configure OpenTelemetry to export metrics to Prometheus:
exporters: prometheus: endpoint: "0.0.0.0:8889"
Start Prometheus:
docker run -d --name prometheus -p 9090:9090 \ -v prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml \ prom/prometheus
What Undercode Say:
OpenTelemetry is revolutionizing observability by providing a unified standard for logs, metrics, and traces. Key takeaways:
– Use OTLP for efficient data export.
– Leverage auto-instrumentation for minimal code changes.
– Combine Jaeger + Prometheus + Grafana for full-stack monitoring.
Expected Output:
✔ Traces visible in Jaeger UI
✔ Metrics scraped by Prometheus
✔ Logs centralized via FluentBit/ELK
Prediction:
OpenTelemetry will dominate cloud-native observability, replacing proprietary agents like Datadog and New Relic in cost-sensitive environments.
🔗 Further Reading:
References:
Reported By: Mhausenblas Observability – Hackers Feeds
Extra Hub: Undercode MoN
Basic Verification: Pass ✅
