Instana

OpenTelemetry, a vendor-agnostic open-source project, is maintained by the CNCF. This project encompasses standards, instrumentation libraries, and pipeline resources for managing typical telemetry signals - metrics, traces, and logs. 

Created by the merging of OpenTracing and OpenCensus projects in 2019, OpenTelemetry has since gained a stronghold as the default standard for open-source distributed tracing. Instana currently accommodates the consumption of OpenTelemetry traces and spans, effortlessly integrating them with the wealth of context accessible through the Instana agents. 

While the open-source world recognized distributed tracing as a revolution in 2019, tracing has been an integral part of Instana since its establishment. Our primary topic for this post will be the collection and examination of custom metrics via OpenTelemetry and Instana. 

The OTLP metric format was classified as stable in late 2021, and Instana now supports OTLP metric intake in an open beta stage. Custom metrics derived from Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, and other sources, can be combined with Instana-native metrics to fabricate sophisticated dashboards and intelligent alerts. 

OpenTelemetry brings to light numerous questions for SRE and observability teams. Our discussion hones in on two primary questions: 

• "Should I employ Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, or the Instana SDK for custom metrics?" (naturally, the answer depends on the circumstances) 

• "What opportunities will I forgo if I refrain from integrating OpenTelemetry?" (alternatively, "what are the potential advantages of embracing OpenTelemetry now?") 

What should I deploy to emit custom metrics?

As an observability vendor, we pledge to ingest all data forms that could potentially enhance our understanding of your application performance. Custom metrics are crucial in ensuring that we monitor processes and pipelines pertinent to our customers rather than merely monitoring machinery. OpenTelemetry, with its OTLP format, collector, receivers, processors, and exporters, provides an array of choices for custom metrics pipelines. 

The selection ultimately hinges on what suits your circumstances. If your service already incorporates the Instana SDK, it would be practical to continue its usage rather than introduce additional dependencies. If a third-party application you're adopting is already furnished with OpenTelemetry or Prometheus metrics, there's scant reason to alter that instrumentation.  

One point of note is that OpenTelemetry and the Instana SDK's are incompatible within a single service. Although you could typically run a Prometheus exporter alongside either, caution should be exercised to avoid duplicative time series and superfluous metrics. 

What will I be missing if I don't adopt OpenTelemetry? 

OpenTelemetry can potentially offer three main advantages: convergence, compatibility, and cooperation. 

Convergence is achieved via the shared OTLP standard and the API specifications, facilitating the creation of universal practices and tools for application instrumentation across all vendors and technology stacks. This convergence stimulates widespread interoperability between tools adhering to the spec. Such interoperability fosters the development of innovative ideas and tools built upon the existing common ground.  

Specifically, for OpenTelemetry and Instana, with Instana, customers already have comprehensive end-to-end tracing, custom metrics, rich logs, and all the other data you require to meet your observability objectives.  

Instana's OpenTelemetry support might offer developers a simpler route to instrument certain new services. Today Instana customers can leverage the extensive OpenTelemetry SDK coverage, enabling easy tracing of applications running in C++, Erlang/Elixir, Quarkus native binaries, and more formats that would otherwise remain obscure to the Instana agents — significantly enhancing compatibility. 

Instana users can also benefit from cooperation. OpenTelemetry instrumentation is expected to be a default offering from many framework, application, and cloud vendors in the future. This could empower engineers to launch new applications fully equipped with portable, vendor-neutral instrumentation right from the outset.  

Final Thoughts 

OpenTelemetry's impact on the observability landscape, and Instana's approach towards it, marks a significant step towards improved interoperability, compatibility, and convergence. As a company, Instana is committed to adapting and aligning with the best practices in the industry to enhance its offerings for customers. With the evolution of OpenTelemetry and its broadening scope, we are better positioned to provide more effective solutions for monitoring and tracing. 

While Instana already offers comprehensive end-to-end tracing, custom metrics, and rich logs, the integration of OpenTelemetry extends these capabilities. It offers users a wider range of possibilities for understanding and improving their application performance. We're excited about the future of OpenTelemetry and its potential to redefine how we approach observability and application performance management. 

We look forward to exploring more about custom metrics in Instana in the future.  

Additional Resources for OpenTelemetry with Instana