Why it matters

OTel is the future. Understanding it removes vendor lock-in and provides consistent instrumentation. Modern observability starts here.

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The architecture

API: language-specific APIs for creating spans, metrics, logs. Standardized across languages.

SDK: implementation. Processes data, batches, sends.

Collector: standalone service that receives, processes, exports telemetry. Vendor-neutral.

OpenTelemetry stackInstrument via APIlanguage SDKsCollector receivesprocess + batchExport to backendDatadog / Honeycomb / etcAuto-instrumentation for popular frameworks; manual for custom code
OTel architecture.
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How it works end to end

Auto-instrumentation: agents or libraries that instrument popular frameworks automatically (Spring, Django, Express, gRPC).

Manual instrumentation: custom spans, custom metrics via API.

Backends: any OTel-compliant. Switch by changing collector config, not code.