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Application Observability with the OpenTelemetry Collector

Grafana Alloy is a vendor-neutral distribution of the OpenTelemetry Collector and the recommended and supported way to send OpenTelemetry data to Grafana Cloud.

Grafana Application Observability has experimental compatibility with the upstream community supported OpenTelemetry Collector.

Before you begin

To set up the OpenTelemetry Collector to send to Grafana Cloud:

If you’ve already set up a Collector, configure your application to use it.

The following external resources provide configuration guidance for running Grafana and the OpenTelemetry Collector in the cloud or Kubernetes:

For most use cases, Grafana Labs recommends to use the OpenTelemetry Collector Grafana Cloud integration tile to configure the OpenTelemetry Collector.

Manually configure the OpenTelemetry Collector

For most use cases, Grafana Labs recommends to use the OpenTelemetry Collector Grafana Cloud integration tile to generate a configuration file.

For advanced use cases you can manually configure the config.yaml configuration file to run the OpenTelemetry Collector:

yaml 
# Tested with OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib v0.98.0
receivers:
  otlp:
    # https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/tree/main/receiver/otlpreceiver
    protocols:
      grpc:
      http:
  hostmetrics:
    # Optional. Host Metrics Receiver added as an example of Infra Monitoring capabilities of the OpenTelemetry Collector
    # https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/receiver/hostmetricsreceiver
    scrapers:
      load:
      memory:

processors:
  batch:
    # https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/tree/main/processor/batchprocessor
  resourcedetection:
    # Enriches telemetry data with resource information from the host
    # https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/processor/resourcedetectionprocessor
    detectors: ["env", "system"]
    override: false
  transform/drop_unneeded_resource_attributes:
    # https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/processor/transformprocessor
    error_mode: ignore
    trace_statements:
      - context: resource
        statements:
          - delete_key(attributes, "k8s.pod.start_time")
          - delete_key(attributes, "os.description")
          - delete_key(attributes, "os.type")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.command_args")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.executable.path")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.pid")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.runtime.description")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.runtime.name")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.runtime.version")
    metric_statements:
      - context: resource
        statements:
          - delete_key(attributes, "k8s.pod.start_time")
          - delete_key(attributes, "os.description")
          - delete_key(attributes, "os.type")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.command_args")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.executable.path")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.pid")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.runtime.description")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.runtime.name")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.runtime.version")
    log_statements:
      - context: resource
        statements:
          - delete_key(attributes, "k8s.pod.start_time")
          - delete_key(attributes, "os.description")
          - delete_key(attributes, "os.type")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.command_args")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.executable.path")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.pid")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.runtime.description")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.runtime.name")
          - delete_key(attributes, "process.runtime.version")
  transform/add_resource_attributes_as_metric_attributes:
    # https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/processor/transformprocessor
    error_mode: ignore
    metric_statements:
      - context: datapoint
        statements:
          - set(attributes["deployment.environment"], resource.attributes["deployment.environment"])
          - set(attributes["service.version"], resource.attributes["service.version"])

exporters:
  otlphttp/grafana_cloud:
    # https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/tree/main/exporter/otlphttpexporter
    endpoint: "${env:GRAFANA_CLOUD_OTLP_ENDPOINT}"
    auth:
      authenticator: basicauth/grafana_cloud
    
extensions:
  basicauth/grafana_cloud:
    # https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/extension/basicauthextension
    client_auth:
      username: "${env:GRAFANA_CLOUD_INSTANCE_ID}"
      password: "${env:GRAFANA_CLOUD_API_KEY}"

connectors:
  grafanacloud:
    # https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/connector/grafanacloudconnector
    host_identifiers: ["host.name"]

service:
  extensions:
    [
      basicauth/grafana_cloud,
    ]
  pipelines:
    traces:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors:
        [resourcedetection, transform/drop_unneeded_resource_attributes, batch]
      exporters: [otlphttp/grafana_cloud, grafanacloud]
    metrics:
      receivers: [otlp, hostmetrics]
      processors:
        [
          resourcedetection,
          transform/drop_unneeded_resource_attributes,
          transform/add_resource_attributes_as_metric_attributes,
          batch,
        ]
      exporters: [otlphttp/grafana_cloud]
    metrics/grafanacloud:
      receivers: [grafanacloud]
      processors: [batch]
      exporters: [otlphttp/grafana_cloud]
    logs:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors:
        [
          resourcedetection,
          transform/drop_unneeded_resource_attributes,
          batch,
        ]
      exporters: [otlphttp/grafana_cloud]

The instrumented application sends traces, metrics, and logs to the collector via OTLP. The collector receives data and processes it with defined pipelines.

The traces pipeline receives traces with the otlp receiver and exports them to the Grafana Cloud Tempo with the otlp exporter. The configuration uses the resourcedetection processor to enrich telemetry data with resource information from the host. Consult the resource detection processor README.md for a list of configuration options.

The metrics pipeline receives traces from the otlp receiver, and applies a transform processor to add deployment.environment, and service.version labels to metrics, and exports metrics to the Grafana Cloud Metrics with the prometheusremotewrite exporter.

The logs pipeline receives logs with the otlp receiver and exports them to the Grafana Cloud Loki with the loki exporter.

The configuration file requires you to set several environmental variables:

Environment VariableDescriptionExample
GRAFANA_CLOUD_API_KEYAPI key generated aboveeyJvSomeLongStringJ9fQ==
GRAFANA_CLOUD_OTLP_ENDPOINTOTLP endpoint from Grafana Cloud > OpenTelemetry > Configurehttps://otlp-endpoint-***.grafana.net/otlp
GRAFANA_CLOUD_INSTANCE_IDInstance ID from Grafana Cloud > OpenTelemetry > Configure11111

Run OpenTelemetry Collector

Create the config.yaml file, set the necessary environment variables, and run the OpenTelemetry Collector.

Configure your application

Set the following environment variables to configure your application to use the OpenTelemetry Collector:

ConfigurationOptionsResult
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=<host>http://localhost:4318, remote host addressThe default local host address, or a remote host address.
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=<protocol>grpc, http/protobufThe default http/protobuf protocol or grpc

For example, for a local OpenTelemetry Collector set the following environment variables:

shell 
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=grpc

Then restart your application.

Next steps

  1. Observe your services in Application Observability