OpenTelemetry Collector
OpenTelemetry Collector — a standalone process that collects telemetry (traces/metrics/logs) from applications and forwards it to a backend. Architecture: receivers (OTLP/Jaeger/Prometheus) → processors (batch, attributes, tail-sampling) → exporters (Jaeger/Tempo/Datadog/Kafka). Vendor independence: switching backends only touches config.yaml. Runs as a DaemonSet in K8s or as a sidecar.
Below: details, example, related terms, FAQ.
Details
- Receivers: OTLP (gRPC+HTTP), Jaeger, Zipkin, Prometheus, Kafka
- Processors: batch, memory_limiter, attributes, resource, tail_sampling
- Exporters: Jaeger, Tempo, Datadog, NewRelic, Honeycomb, Kafka, OTLP
- Deployment: agent (DaemonSet) + gateway (central cluster)
- Config: YAML, hot-reloaded via SIGHUP
Example
# collector.yaml — minimal
receivers:
otlp:
protocols:
grpc: { endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4317 }
processors:
batch:
exporters:
otlp/tempo:
endpoint: tempo:4317
tls: { insecure: true }
service:
pipelines:
traces:
receivers: [otlp]
processors: [batch]
exporters: [otlp/tempo]Related
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Frequently Asked Questions
Need a Collector if the SDK has exporters?
Prototype — no, the SDK writes directly. Production — yes: batching, retry, tail-sampling, cross-signal correlation are Collector work.
Overhead?
20-50 MB RAM per agent, < 1 % CPU at 10k spans/sec.
Contrib vs Core?
Core — OTel-supported components only. Contrib — 100+ community receivers (Redis, Postgres, K8s events).