Starting with version 13.0.5.1, IBM App Connect Enterprise (ACE) introduces a new serviceability improvement: the Activity Log now includes OpenTelemetry (OTEL) metadata — TRACE_ID, SPAN_ID, TRACE_STATE, and TRACE_PARENT — whenever OpenTelemetry is enabled on the Integration Server. 

App Connect Enterprise’s activity log is designed to be easily readable and supports tag‑based logging for efficient search and filtering. The integration of OTEL metadata within these tags significantly strengthens serviceability and improves troubleshooting, allowing issues to be traced more precisely to individual nodes or messages when OpenTelemetry is enabled.

Enabling OpenTelemetry for an Integration Server :

To take advantage of the new capability of writing OpenTelemetry metadata to the Activity Log, first OpenTelemetry tracing needs to be enabled on the Integration Server. By default, tracing is disabled.

OpenTelemetry can be configured in the server.conf.yaml file under the ResourceManagers section, specifically within the OpenTelemetryManager subsection. The properties are as follows :

  OpenTelemetryManager:
    openTelemetryEnabled: true          # Enable or disable OpenTelemetry tracing.
    openTelemetryServiceName: 'demoName'         # Override the Service Name attribute for telemetry spans. Defaults to integration server name.
    openTelemetryHostName: 'demoHost'            # Override the value of the Hostname attribute for telemetry spans.
    exporterOtlpGrpcEndpoint: 'hostname:4317'         # Specify a GRPC endpoint to which OpenTelemetry span data is sent. For example, '<hostname>:4317'.
    exporterOtlpHttpUrl: 'hostname:port/v1/traces'              # Specify a HTTP Url to which OpenTelemetry span data (json) is sent. For example, 'http://<hostname>:<port>/v1/traces'.

Once OpenTelemetry is enabled, ACE will automatically include the OTEL identifiers (TRACE_ID, SPAN_ID, TRACE_STATE, and TRACE_PARENT) in the Activity Log, making them visible across the WebUI, console or activity log configured on the file system. No additional configuration is required beyond enabling OpenTelemetry for the Integration Server. The OTEL metadata gets logged under the Tags /ibm_tags section of the activity log.

Demonstration message flow:

To demonstrate this capability, we will use a simple message flow — HttpInput → Compute → HttpReply. This example will be used to show how OpenTelemetry (OTEL) metadata is captured and recorded in the Activity Log as the message traverses through the flow.

When OpenTelemetry is enabled on the Integration Server, the following OTEL metadata is visible in the monitoring backend (Jaeger UI in this example) for the invocation of this flow.

The highlighted OpenTelemetry metadata has been included in the Activity log for the corresponding tags of this message flow. 

Viewing OTEL Metadata in Different Log Destinations :

1. Activity Log in the WebUI for this message flow :

2.  Activity log in the Integration server console log :

If the consoleLog property is set to true in the ActivityLog policy or server.conf.yaml, OTEL metadata appears in the console output as follows with the respective BIP messages :

 {"type":"ace_activity_log","ibm_product":"IBM App Connect Enterprise","ibm_recordtype":"ace_activity_log","host":"IBM-PF38WZEK","module":"adminservices","ibm_nodeName":"OTELService","ibm_serverName":"Test","ibm_processName":"IntegrationServer","ibm_processId":"22064","ibm_threadId":"34996","ibm_datetime":"2025-11-23T09:56:40.253270Z","loglevel":"INFO","message":"11518I: Processing Data received from Input node 'HTTP Input'. ","ibm_message_detail":"","ibm_messageId":"11518I","ibm_tags":{"OTEL_TRACEPARENT":"00-23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746-0b26a00d98ed749a-01","OTEL_TRACEID":"23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746","OTEL_SPANID":"0b26a00d98ed749a","OTEL_TRACESTATE":"","MSGFLOW":"Httpsimpleflow","NODE":"HTTP Input","NODETYPE":"INPUT"}}

{"type":"ace_activity_log","ibm_product":"IBM App Connect Enterprise","ibm_recordtype":"ace_activity_log","host":"IBM-PF38WZEK","module":"adminservices","ibm_nodeName":"OTELService","ibm_serverName":"Test","ibm_processName":"IntegrationServer","ibm_processId":"22064","ibm_threadId":"34996","ibm_datetime":"2025-11-23T09:56:40.261428Z","loglevel":"INFO","message":"11517I: HTTP reply made from node 'HTTP Reply' with status '200' ","ibm_message_detail":"","ibm_messageId":"11517I","ibm_tags":{"OTEL_TRACEPARENT":"00-23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746-0b26a00d98ed749a-01","OTEL_TRACEID":"23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746","OTEL_SPANID":"0b26a00d98ed749a","OTEL_TRACESTATE":"","MSGFLOW":"Httpsimpleflow","NODE":"HTTP Reply","NODETYPE":"REPLY","HTTP_STATUS":"200"}}

{"type":"ace_activity_log","ibm_product":"IBM App Connect Enterprise","ibm_recordtype":"ace_activity_log","host":"IBM-PF38WZEK","module":"adminservices","ibm_nodeName":"OTELService","ibm_serverName":"Test","ibm_processName":"IntegrationServer","ibm_processId":"22064","ibm_threadId":"34996","ibm_datetime":"2025-11-23T09:56:40.263283Z","loglevel":"INFO","message":"11506I: Committed a local transaction.","ibm_message_detail":"A local transaction has been committed for work done on the message flow thread. ","ibm_messageId":"11506I","ibm_tags":{"OTEL_TRACEPARENT":"00-23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746-0b26a00d98ed749a-01","OTEL_TRACEID":"23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746","OTEL_SPANID":"0b26a00d98ed749a","OTEL_TRACESTATE":"","MSGFLOW":"Httpsimpleflow","NODE":"HTTP Input"}}

3. Activity Log Written to File System :

When configured via properties in the Activity Log policy or server.conf.yaml, OTEL metadata is also written to log files on the file system. They appear as follows for the respective BIP messages:

11518,I,"2025-11-23 09:56:40.253270",34996,,"OTEL_TRACEPARENT=00-23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746-0b26a00d98ed749a-01,OTEL_TRACEID=23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746,OTEL_SPANID=0b26a00d98ed749a,OTEL_TRACESTATE=,MSGFLOW=Httpsimpleflow,NODE=HTTP Input,NODETYPE=INPUT,",HTTP Input,Httpsimpleflow,(000088B4-6922DA58-00000001),

11517,I,"2025-11-23 09:56:40.261428",34996,,"OTEL_TRACEPARENT=00-23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746-0b26a00d98ed749a-01,OTEL_TRACEID=23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746,OTEL_SPANID=0b26a00d98ed749a,OTEL_TRACESTATE=,MSGFLOW=Httpsimpleflow,NODE=HTTP Reply,NODETYPE=REPLY,HTTP_STATUS=200,",HTTP Reply,200,(000088B4-6922DA58-00000001),

11506,I,"2025-11-23 09:56:40.263283",34996,,"OTEL_TRACEPARENT=00-23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746-0b26a00d98ed749a-01,OTEL_TRACEID=23c1e6a5b96925d52cce2aac2c753746,OTEL_SPANID=0b26a00d98ed749a,OTEL_TRACESTATE=,MSGFLOW=Httpsimpleflow,NODE=HTTP Input,",(000088B4-6922DA58-00000001),

To conclude, from version 13.0.5.1 onwards, IBM App Connect Enterprise adds Open Telemetry metadata — TRACE_ID, SPAN_ID, TRACE_STATE, and TRACE_PARENT — to the Activity Log when enabled, making these identifiers visible across WebUI, console, and file logs for improved serviceability and troubleshooting.