OpenTelemetry and Datadog Integration

Input and output integration overview

This plugin receives traces, metrics, and logs from OpenTelemetry clients and agents via gRPC, enabling comprehensive observability of applications.

The Datadog Telegraf Plugin enables the submission of metrics to the Datadog Metrics API, facilitating efficient monitoring and data analysis through a reliable metric ingestion process.

Integration details

OpenTelemetry

The OpenTelemetry plugin is designed to receive telemetry data such as traces, metrics, and logs from clients and agents implementing OpenTelemetry via gRPC. This plugin initiates a gRPC service that listens for incoming telemetry data, making it distinct from standard plugins that collect metrics at defined intervals. The OpenTelemetry ecosystem aids developers in observing and understanding their applications’ performance by providing a vendor-neutral way to instrument, generate, collect, and export telemetry data. Key features of this plugin include customizable connection timeouts, adjustable maximum message sizes for incoming data, and options for specifying span, log, and profile dimensions to tag the incoming metrics. With this flexibility, organizations can tailor their telemetry collection to meet precise observability requirements and ensure seamless data integration into systems like InfluxDB.

Datadog

This plugin writes to the Datadog Metrics API, enabling users to send metrics for monitoring and performance analysis. By utilizing the Datadog API key, users can configure the plugin to establish a connection with Datadog’s v1 API. The plugin supports various configuration options including connection timeouts, HTTP proxy settings, and data compression methods, ensuring adaptability to different deployment environments. The ability to transform count metrics into rates enhances the integration of Telegraf with Datadog agents, particularly beneficial for applications that rely on real-time performance metrics.

Configuration

OpenTelemetry

[[inputs.opentelemetry]]
  ## Override the default (0.0.0.0:4317) destination OpenTelemetry gRPC service
  ## address:port
  # service_address = "0.0.0.0:4317"

  ## Override the default (5s) new connection timeout
  # timeout = "5s"

  ## gRPC Maximum Message Size
  # max_msg_size = "4MB"

  ## Override the default span attributes to be used as line protocol tags.
  ## These are always included as tags:
  ## - trace ID
  ## - span ID
  ## Common attributes can be found here:
  ## - https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/tree/main/semconv
  # span_dimensions = ["service.name", "span.name"]

  ## Override the default log record attributes to be used as line protocol tags.
  ## These are always included as tags, if available:
  ## - trace ID
  ## - span ID
  ## Common attributes can be found here:
  ## - https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/tree/main/semconv
  ## When using InfluxDB for both logs and traces, be certain that log_record_dimensions
  ## matches the span_dimensions value.
  # log_record_dimensions = ["service.name"]

  ## Override the default profile attributes to be used as line protocol tags.
  ## These are always included as tags, if available:
  ## - profile_id
  ## - address
  ## - sample
  ## - sample_name
  ## - sample_unit
  ## - sample_type
  ## - sample_type_unit
  ## Common attributes can be found here:
  ## - https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/tree/main/semconv
  # profile_dimensions = []

  ## Override the default (prometheus-v1) metrics schema.
  ## Supports: "prometheus-v1", "prometheus-v2"
  ## For more information about the alternatives, read the Prometheus input
  ## plugin notes.
  # metrics_schema = "prometheus-v1"

  ## Optional TLS Config.
  ## For advanced options: https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/blob/v1.18.3/docs/TLS.md
  ##
  ## Set one or more allowed client CA certificate file names to
  ## enable mutually authenticated TLS connections.
  # tls_allowed_cacerts = ["/etc/telegraf/clientca.pem"]
  ## Add service certificate and key.
  # tls_cert = "/etc/telegraf/cert.pem"
  # tls_key = "/etc/telegraf/key.pem"
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Datadog

[[outputs.datadog]]
  ## Datadog API key
  apikey = "my-secret-key"

  ## Connection timeout.
  # timeout = "5s"

  ## Write URL override; useful for debugging.
  ## This plugin only supports the v1 API currently due to the authentication
  ## method used.
  # url = "https://app.datadoghq.com/api/v1/series"

  ## Set http_proxy
  # use_system_proxy = false
  # http_proxy_url = "http://localhost:8888"

  ## Override the default (none) compression used to send data.
  ## Supports: "zlib", "none"
  # compression = "none"

  ## When non-zero, converts count metrics submitted by inputs.statsd
  ## into rate, while dividing the metric value by this number.
  ## Note that in order for metrics to be submitted simultaenously alongside
  ## a Datadog agent, rate_interval has to match the interval used by the
  ## agent - which defaults to 10s
  # rate_interval = 0s
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Input and output integration examples

OpenTelemetry

1. Unified Monitoring Across Services: Use the OpenTelemetry plugin to collect and consolidate telemetry data from various microservices within a Kubernetes environment. By instrumenting each service with OpenTelemetry, you can utilize this plugin to gather a holistic view of application performance and dependencies in real-time, enabling faster troubleshooting and improved reliability of complex systems.

2. Enhanced Debugging with Traces: Implement this plugin to capture end-to-end traces of requests flowing through multiple services. For instance, when a user initiates a transaction that triggers several backend services, the OpenTelemetry plugin can record detailed traces that highlight performance bottlenecks, giving developers the necessary insights to debug issues and optimize their code.

3. Dynamic Load Testing and Performance Monitoring: Leverage the capabilities of this plugin during load testing phases by collecting live metrics and traces under simulated higher loads. This approach helps to evaluate the resilience of the application components and identify potential performance degradations preemptively, ensuring a smooth user experience in production.

4. Integrated Logging and Metrics for Real-Time Monitoring: Combine the OpenTelemetry plugin with logging frameworks to gather real-time logs alongside metric data, creating a powerful observability platform. For example, integrate it within a CI/CD pipeline to monitor builds and deployments, while collecting logs that help diagnose failures or performance issues in real-time.

Datadog

1. Real-Time Infrastructure Monitoring: Use the Datadog plugin to monitor server metrics in real-time by sending CPU usage and memory statistics directly to Datadog. This integration allows IT teams to visualize and analyze system performance metrics in a centralized dashboard, enabling proactive response to any emerging issues, such as resource bottlenecks or server overloads.

2. Application Performance Tracking: Leverage this plugin to submit application-specific metrics, such as request counts and error rates, to Datadog. By integrating with application monitoring tools, teams can correlate infrastructure metrics with application performance, providing insights that enable them to optimize code performance and improve user experience.

3. Anomaly Detection in Metrics: Configure the Datadog plugin to send metrics that can trigger alerts and notifications based on unusual patterns detected by Datadog’s machine learning features. This proactive monitoring helps teams swiftly react to potential outages or performance degradation before customers are impacted.

4. Integrating with Cloud Services: By utilizing the Datadog plugin to send metrics from cloud resources, IT teams can gain visibility into cloud application performance. Monitoring metrics like latency and error rates helps with ensuring service-level agreements (SLAs) are met and also assists in optimizing resource allocation across cloud environments.

Feedback

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