OpenTelemetry Collector: What It Is, When You Need It, and When You Don't
6 hours ago
- #OpenTelemetry
- #DevOps
- #Observability
- The OpenTelemetry Collector is a vendor-neutral telemetry pipeline for receiving, processing, and exporting telemetry data.
- It centralizes telemetry policy, reduces vendor lock-in, and optimizes data handling (e.g., batching, sampling, redaction).
- Direct export from services to backends is simpler but lacks centralized control and cost optimization.
- Using a Collector provides centralized configuration, security boundaries, and multi-destination routing.
- Key Collector components: Receivers, Processors, Exporters, Extensions, and Pipelines.
- Collector benefits include cost savings, failure isolation, and easier vendor migration.
- Use a Collector for production/multi-service environments; skip for small projects or POCs.
- Collector enables tail sampling, PII redaction, and cost governance by dropping low-value data.
- Monitor the Collector's internal metrics for performance and reliability.
- Golden rule: Emit broadly at the edge, curate in the pipeline, store intentionally in the backend.