OPENTELEMETRY - A NEW ERA OF OBSERVATORY FRAMEWORKS

Opentelemetry is an open-source project that aims to provide a unified, vendor-neutral, and open standard for distributed tracing and metrics collection. It was created as a merger between the OpenTracing and OpenCensus projects, with the goal of providing a single, comprehensive solution for observability in microservices and cloud-native environments.

The OpenTracing project was created in 2015 as a way to standardize the way that applications instrument and report tracing information. It was designed to be vendor-agnostic, meaning that it could work with any tracing system and be easily integrated into any application. OpenTracing quickly became popular among developers, and many companies started using it to instrument their applications and services.

However, as the use of microservices and cloud-native architectures increased, the need for more comprehensive observability solutions became apparent. OpenTracing, while powerful, was focused primarily on tracing, and did not provide a way to collect and analyze metrics. This led to the creation of the OpenCensus project in 2016.

OpenCensus aimed to fill this gap by providing a way to collect and analyze metrics from distributed systems. It provided a set of libraries for various programming languages, as well as a set of exporters for sending metrics to various monitoring and observability tools. OpenCensus quickly gained traction and was adopted by many companies as a way to instrument their applications and services.

As the use of microservices and cloud-native architectures continued to grow, it became clear that a single solution that combined the strengths of both OpenTracing and OpenCensus was needed. In 2018, the OpenTelemetry project was created as a merger of OpenTracing and OpenCensus.

Opentelemetry provides a comprehensive solution for distributed tracing and metrics collection, and it is designed to work with any tracing and monitoring system. It provides libraries for various programming languages, and it also provides a set of exporters for sending tracing and metrics data to various monitoring and observability tools. Opentelemetry also provides a set of APIs that allow developers to instrument their applications and services with minimal effort.

The OpenTelemetry project has quickly gained traction, and it has been adopted by many companies as a way to instrument their applications and services. The project is actively being developed and improved, and it is expected to become the de-facto standard for distributed tracing and metrics collection in the near future.

One of the most notable examples of this is New Relic, which integrated Opentelemetry into its APM platform. This integration allows developers to use the same tracing and metrics data across multiple monitoring and observability tools, making it easier to troubleshoot and optimize their applications.

Another example is Datadog, which has also announced that it will be integrating Opentelemetry into its platform, allowing developers to use the same data across multiple monitoring and observability tools.

In addition to these major APM vendors, many other companies are also starting to adopt Opentelemetry. For example, Grafana Labs, the creators of Grafana, an open-source monitoring and observability platform, have announced that they will be integrating Opentelemetry into their platform.

Furthermore, Opentelemetry has been adopted as a standard by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which is a Linux Foundation project that aims to promote and advance cloud-native technologies. This means that many other CNCF projects, such as Kubernetes, are starting to adopt Opentelemetry as a standard for distributed tracing and metrics collection.

In conclusion, the Opentelemetry project is a powerful and comprehensive solution for distributed tracing and metrics collection that aims to provide a unified, vendor-neutral, and open standard for observability in microservices and cloud-native environments. Its evolution from the OpenTracing and OpenCensus projects has led to the creation of a single, comprehensive solution that is actively being developed and improved, and it is expected to become the de-facto standard for distributed tracing and metrics collection in the near future. The adoption of Opentelemetry has been increasing in recent years, as many APM vendors have recognized the benefits of the Opentelemetry standard and have started to integrate it into their products. This is expected to continue in the future as more companies start to adopt Opentelemetry as a standard for distributed tracing and metrics collection.