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Exploring the power of
OpenTelemetry on
Kubernetes
Pavol Loffay
Principal Software Engineer
Benedikt Bongartz
Senior Software Engineer

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● Pavol Loffay
● Principal Software Engineer
● OpenTelemetry, Jaeger maintainer
● Follow me @ploffay
Bio

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● Benedikt Bongartz
● Senior Software Engineer
● Working on OpenTelemetry
● Contact
○ @frzifus@fosstodon.org
○ frzifus:matrix.org
Bio

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● History observability
● Intro to OpenTelemetry (OTEL)
○ Instrumentation
○ Collector
● OpenTelemetry Kubernetes operator
○ Instrumentation CR
○ Collector CR
● Data collection use-cases - Traces, Metrics, Logs
● What is next?
Agenda

5.
A peek into history of OSS
observability
technology advancement and less vendor locking

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OSS distributed tracing history
X-Trace
2007
Dapper paper
2010
Zipkin
2012
OpenTracing
2015
Jaeger
2017
OpenTelemetry
DataDog
2019 New Relic
2020
OpenCensus
2016
Hypetrace
Grafana
Tempo
2020
SigNoz
2021
Apache
SkyWalking
2015
Data
model
bespoke
APIs
SDK
Collector auto-instrumentation
Spec
API
Instrumentation
libraries
some
instrumentation
reusable
instrumentation
libraries
Agents/
auto-instrumentation

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OpenTelemetry a.k.a. OTEL
Open-source data collection project

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● Open source!
● Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)
● Vendor neutral telemetry data collection
● Specification, API, SDK, data model - OTLP, auto-instrumentation, collector
● Helm chart, Kubernetes operator

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OpenTelemetry is only data collection
It is not platform, storage nor query API

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OpenTelemetry instrumentation
How telemetry data is created

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frontend
logger.log()
meter.record()
tracer.span().start()
driver
logger.log()
meter.record()
tracer.span().start()
collector
customer
logger.log()
meter.record()
tracer.span().start()
HTTP
Platform
(Prometheus/Jaeger/Loki)
Data collection
Platform

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● Manual / Explicit
○ Better control
○ Might have better performance
○ Requires code change, recompilation, redeploy
● Direct integration in runtimes - e.g. Quarkus, Wildfly
● Auto-instrumentation / agent
○ Easy to roll out
○ Wide framework coverage
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Instrumentation
java -javaagent:/opt/javaagent.jar -jar target/demo-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
tracing.enabled = true
io.opentelemetry:opentelemetry-api:1.22.0
io.opentelemetry.instrumentation:opentelemetry-grpc-1.6:1.19.1

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● Java
● C#
● NodeJS
● Python
● PHP
● Golang
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OpenTelemetry auto-instrumentation
java -javaagent:/opt/javaagent.jar -jar target/demo-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar
JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS = -javaagent:/otel-auto-instrumentation/javaagent.jar
CORECLR_ENABLE_PROFILING, CORECLR_PROFILER_PATH, DOTNET_ADDITIONAL_DEPS, DOTNET_SHARED_STORE
NODE_OPTIONS = --require /otel-auto-instrumentation/autoinstrumentation.js
PYTHONPATH = /otel-auto-instrumentation/opentelemetry/instrumentation/auto_instrumentation//otel-auto-instrumentation

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OpenTelemetry collector
How telemetry data is collected
and exported to a platform

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● Written in Golang
● Docs - opentelemetry.io/docs/collector/
● Two distributions
○ Core - opentelemetry-collector-releases/distributions/otelcol
○ Contrib - opentelemetry-collector-releases/distributions/otelcol-contrib
○ Build your own
● Many components open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib
● Distributed as: binary, container image, APK/DEB/RPM
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OpenTelemetry collector

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Instrumentation and collector
app/workload/pod
(auto) Instrumentation
API/SDK
RPC framework (e.g. servlet)
Jaeger
OpenTelemetry
Zipkin
OpenCensus
Batching
PII
filter
Re-labeling
Custom
Splunk
Kafka
Jaeger
Batching
Data
drop
Collector
Receivers Processors Exporters

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OpenTelemetry Kubernetes Operator
Manages OpenTelemetry collector and Instrumentation

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● https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-operator
● Kubernetes operator Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs):
○ opentelemetrycollectors.opentelemetry.io / otelcol
○ instrumentation.opentelemetry.io / otelinst
● The operator can be installed via OLM, Helm chart or K8s manifests
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OpenTelemetry operator

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Collector CRD

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● Deployment modes: .spec.mode
○ sidecar, deployment, daemonset, statefulset
● Auto scaling or kubectl scale --replicas=5 otelcols/simplest
● Expose outside of the cluster .spec.ingress
● Use custom collector image .spec.image
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OpenTelemetry Operator - Collector Kind

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OTEL-Collector configuration
apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: OpenTelemetryCollector
metadata:
name: otel
spec:
mode: deployment
config: |
receivers:
otlp:
protocols:
grpc:
endpoint: 0.0.0.0:14250
exporters:
logging:
loglevel: debug
service:
extensions: [headers_setter, ...]
pipelines:
traces:
processors: [batch,...]
receivers: [otlp]
exporters: [logging]
# Data src: traces, metrics, logs
processors: # <optional>
batch:
send_batch_size: 10000
timeout: 10s
resourcedetection/openshift:
detectors: openshift
timeout: 2s
override: false
extensions: # <optional>
headers_setter:
- key: X-Scope-OrgID
from_context: tenant_id
- key: User-ID
value: user_id
sidecar.opentelemetry.io/inject: "true"

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OpenTelemetry Operator - Collector Kind
kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: OpenTelemetryCollector
metadata:
name: otel
spec:
config: |
receivers:
otlp:
protocols:
grpc:
http:
jaeger:
protocols:
grpc:
thrift_compact:
processors:
exporters:
jaeger:
endpoint: jaeger-collector.headless:14250
service:
pipelines:
traces:
receivers: [otlp, jaeger]
processors: []
exporters: [jaeger]
EOF
sidecar.opentelemetry.io/inject: "true"

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OpenTelemetry Operator - Collector Kind - Processor
processors:
k8sattributes: # Add k8s attributes
attributes: # Delete db.table attribute
actions:
- key: db.table
action: delete
resource: # Add k8s cluster name
attributes:
- key: k8s.cluster.name
from_attribute: k8s-cluster
action: insert
Other use cases:
● Tail base sampling
● Derive RED metrics from traces

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Instrumentation CRD

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OpenTelemetry Operator - Instrumentation Kind
apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: Instrumentation
metadata:
name: my-instrumentation
spec:
exporter:
endpoint: http://otel-collector:4317
propagators:
- tracecontext
- baggage
- b3
sampler:
type: parentbased_traceidratio
argument: "0.25"
resource:
attributes:
k8s.cluster.name: test-1-23
instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-java: "true"
instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-python: "true"
instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-nodejs: "true"
instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-dotnet: "true"
instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-sdk: "true"
instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/container-names: "app"

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Collecting traces on
Kubernetes

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OpenTelemetry Architecture - Tracing
Pod
Container 1
OTEL-Client
OpenTelemetry API
Instrumentation
Application
push
Platform
(Jaeger/Loki/Splunk…)
Platform
instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-java: "true"
apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: Instrumentation
metadata:
name: my–java-instrumentation
spec:
exporter:
. . .

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Collecting metrics on
Kubernetes

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Collector
Platform
(Prometheus/Thanos/Splunk…)
Platform
Pod 2
Node 1
OTEL-Collector configuration
Pod 1
Pull
Push

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OTEL-Collector configuration
apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: OpenTelemetryCollector
metadata:
name: otel
spec:
targetAllocator:
enabled: true
allocationStrategy: least-weighted
replicas: 3
serviceAccount: ta
prometheusCR:
enabled: true
serviceMonitorSelector:
team: backend-1
config: |
receivers:
prometheus:
config:
scrape_configs:
- job_name: ‘otel-collector’
scrape_interval: 10s
static_configs: ...

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OTEL-Collector configuration
apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: OpenTelemetryCollector
metadata:
name: otel
spec:
mode: statefulset
targetAllocator:
enabled: true
allocationStrategy: least-weighted
replicas: 3
serviceAccount: ta
prometheusCR: {}
config: |
receivers:
prometheus:
config:
scrape_configs:
- job_name: ‘otel-collector’
scrape_interval: 10s
static_configs:
- targets: [`0.0.0.0:8888`]
target_allocator:
endpoint: http://my-ta-svc
interval: 30s
collector_id: collector-1

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OTEL-Collector configuration
…
receivers:
prometheus:
config:
global:
scrape_interval: 1m
scrape_timeout: 10s
evaluation_interval: 1m
scrape_configs:
- job_name: otel-collector
honor_timestamps: true
scrape_interval: 10s
scrape_timeout: 10s
metrics_path: /metrics
scheme: http
follow_redirects: true
http_sd_configs:
- follow_redirects: false
url: http://metrics-ta-svc:80/jobs/otel-collector/targets?collector_id=$POD_NAME
spec.targetAllocator.enabeld: "true"

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OTEL-Collector configuration
Be aware of:
● Prometheus does not support UTF-8 labels
[prometheus#11700] [grafana#42615]
Therefore OTEL-Prometheus-Remote-Write converts metrics to Prom
Naming convention. [otel#normalization]
● Other useful metric receiver
[host-metrics]

38.
Collecting logs on
Kubernetes

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● For metrics and traces OpenTelemetry takes the approach of a
clean-sheet design, specifies a new API and provides full
implementations of this API in multiple languages.
● Our approach with logs is somewhat different. For OpenTelemetry to be
successful in logging space we need to support existing legacy of logs
and logging libraries, while offering improvements and better integration
with the rest of observability world where possible.
OpenTelemetry logs

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OpenTelemetry Operator - collecting logs
● File log receiver
○ Available in the “contrib” docker image
○ Example config - opentelemetry-collector-contrib/otel-collector-config.yml
○ Includes: /var/log/pods/*/*/*.log
○ Set of operators to parse data: json_parser, regex_parser, move…
○ Collectors resource attributes: namespace, pod name/UID/restarts, container name
● Fluentforwardreceiver - receive data from

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DaemonSet
collector
Platform
(Loki/OpenSearch/Splunk…)
Platform
Pod 1
Node 1
Pod 2
Pod 3
DaemonSet
collector
Pod 1
Node 2
Pod 2
Pod 3
DaemonSet
collector
Pod 1
Node 3
Pod 2
Pod 3
Kubernetes cluster

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OpenTelemetry Operator - collecting logs, CR
apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: OpenTelemetryCollector
metadata:
name: otel-logs
spec:
mode: daemonset
image:
ghcr.io/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-releases/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:0.
69.0
volumes:
- name: varlog
hostPath:
path: /var/log
- name: varlibdockercontainers
hostPath:
path: /var/lib/docker/containers
volumeMounts:
- mountPath: /var/log
name: varlog
readOnly: true
- mountPath: /var/lib/docker/containers
name: varlibdockercontainers
readOnly: true

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OpenTelemetry Operator - collecting logs, logging exporter 1
2023-01-19T16:28:48.675Z info ResourceLog #0
Resource SchemaURL:
Resource attributes:
-> k8s.namespace.name: Str(cert-manager)
-> k8s.pod.name: Str(cert-manager-cainjector-857ff8f7cb-xmr6p)
-> k8s.container.restart_count: Str(0)
-> k8s.pod.uid: Str(53574bad-1d91-4880-ab87-8f5a88bfffee)
-> k8s.container.name: Str(cert-manager)
ScopeLogs #0
ScopeLogs SchemaURL:
InstrumentationScope
LogRecord #0
ObservedTimestamp: 2023-01-19 16:28:48.674124625 +0000 UTC
Timestamp: 2023-01-18 12:58:21.446092114 +0000 UTC
SeverityText:
SeverityNumber: Unspecified(0)
Body: Str({"log":"I0118 12:58:21.445823 1 controller.go:178]
cert-manager/certificate/customresourcedefinition/controller/controller-for-certificate-customresourcede
finition "msg"="Starting EventSource" "source"="u0026{{%!s(*v1.Certificate=u0026{{ } { 0
{{0 0 u
003cnilu003e}} u003cnilu003e u003cnilu003e map[] map[] [] [] []} {u003cnilu003e
u003cnilu003e u003cnilu003e [] [] [] [] u003cnilu003e u003cnilu003e { } false []
u003cnilu003e u003cnilu003e u003cnilu003e []} {[] u003cnilu003e u003cnilu003e u003cnilu00
3e u003cnilu003e u003cnilu003e u003cnilu003e u003cnilu003e}})
%!s(*cache.informerCache=u0026{0xc000438380}) %!s(chan error=u003cnilu003e)
%!s(func()=u003cnilu003e)}}"n","stream":"stderr","time":"2023-01-18T12:58:21.446092114Z"})

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OpenTelemetry Operator - collecting logs, logging exporter 2
Attributes:
-> log.file.path:
Str(/var/log/pods/cert-manager_cert-manager-cainjector-857ff8f7cb-xmr6p_53574bad-1d91-4880-ab
87-8f5a88bfffee/cert-manager/0.log)
-> log: Str(I0118 12:58:21.445823 1 controller.go:178]
cert-manager/certificate/customresourcedefinition/controller/controller-for-certificate-custo
mresourcedefinition "msg"="Starting EventSource" "source"="&{{%!s(*v1.Certificate=&{{ } {
0 {{0 0 <nil>}} <nil> <nil>
map[] map[] [] [] []} {<nil> <nil> <nil> [] [] [] [] <nil> <nil> { } false [] <nil>
<nil> <nil> []} {[] <nil> <nil> <nil> <nil> <nil> <nil> <nil>}})
%!s(*cache.informerCache=&{0xc000438380}) %!s(chan error=<nil>) %!s(func()=<nil>)}}"
)
-> time: Str(2023-01-18T12:58:21.446092114Z)
-> log.iostream: Str(stderr)
Trace ID:
Span ID:
Flags: 0

45.
What is next?

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● OpenTelemetry Operator
○ Auto-instrumentation for Webservers
● Profiling vision see 0212-profiling-vision.md
● OpAMP: Open Agent Management Protocol see open-telemetry/opamp-spec
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What is next in OpenTelemetry?

47.
Thank you
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Pavol Loffay
@ploffay
Benedikt Bongartz
@frzifus