OpenTelemetry Config Generator

OpenTelemetry (OTel) is an open-source observability framework for generating, collecting, and exporting telemetry data — traces, metrics, and logs. It provides a vendor-neutral SDK and Collector that works with any backend: Jaeger, Zipkin, Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, and more. It's the CNCF standard for distributed tracing and observability.

The OTel Collector is a middleware agent that receives telemetry data, processes it, and exports to one or more backends. It decouples your app from observability backends — change your backend without modifying app code. It supports receivers (OTLP, Jaeger, Zipkin), processors (batch, filter, sampling), and exporters (Jaeger, Prometheus, Loki, OTLP).

OTLP (OpenTelemetry Protocol) is the native protocol for OTel data. gRPC (port 4317) uses binary Protocol Buffers — faster, better for high-throughput, requires HTTP/2. HTTP (port 4318) uses JSON or Protobuf over regular HTTP/1.1 — more compatible with firewalls, load balancers, and service meshes that don't support HTTP/2. Use gRPC for internal communication, HTTP for edge/serverless.

Install the OTel SDK for your language (Go: go.opentelemetry.io/otel, Python: opentelemetry-sdk, Node.js: @opentelemetry/sdk-node, Java: opentelemetry-java-instrumentation). Configure an OTLP exporter pointing to your Collector (OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317). For auto-instrumentation, use the OTel Agent — zero code changes required.

Tail sampling decides which traces to keep AFTER a full trace is complete (unlike head/probabilistic sampling which decides upfront). This lets you keep 100% of error traces and slow requests while sampling normal traffic. The Collector's tail_sampling processor supports latency-based, error-based, and probabilistic policies. Critical for high-volume production systems.

Docker: docker run -p 4317:4317 -p 4318:4318 -v ./otel-config.yaml:/etc/otelcol/config.yaml otel/opentelemetry-collector. Kubernetes: use the OTel Operator (cert-manager required) or deploy as a DaemonSet/Deployment. The Collector exposes health_check on port 13133 and zpages on port 55679 for debugging pipeline status.