OpenTelemetry and Mimir 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.

This plugin sends Telegraf metrics directly to Grafana’s Mimir database using HTTP, providing scalable and efficient long-term storage and analysis for Prometheus-compatible metrics.

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.

Mimir

Grafana Mimir supports the Prometheus Remote Write protocol, enabling Telegraf collected metrics to be efficiently ingested into Mimir clusters for large-scale, long-term storage. This integration leverages Prometheus’s well-established standards, allowing users to combine Telegraf’s extensive data collection capabilities with Mimir’s advanced features, such as query federation, multi-tenancy, high availability, and cost-efficient storage. Grafana Mimir’s architecture is optimized for handling high volumes of metric data and delivering fast query responses, making it ideal for complex monitoring environments and distributed systems.

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"

Mimir

[[outputs.http]]
  url = "http://data-load-balancer-backend-1:9009/api/v1/push"
  data_format = "prometheusremotewrite"
  username = "*****"
  password = "******"
  [outputs.http.headers]
     Content-Type = "application/x-protobuf"
     Content-Encoding = "snappy"
     X-Scope-OrgID = "****"

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.

Mimir

1. Enterprise-Scale Kubernetes Monitoring: Integrate Telegraf with Grafana Mimir to stream metrics from Kubernetes clusters at enterprise scale. This enables comprehensive visibility, improved resource allocation, and proactive troubleshooting across hundreds of clusters, leveraging Mimir’s horizontal scalability and high availability.

2. Multi-tenant SaaS Application Observability: Use this plugin to centralize metrics from diverse SaaS tenants into Grafana Mimir, enabling tenant isolation and accurate billing based on resource usage. This approach provides reliable observability, efficient cost management, and secure multi-tenancy support.

3. Global Edge Network Performance Tracking: Stream latency and availability metrics from globally distributed edge servers into Grafana Mimir. Organizations can quickly identify performance degradation or outages, leveraging Mimir’s fast querying capabilities to ensure optimal service reliability and user experience.

4. Real-Time Analytics for High-Volume Microservices: Implement Telegraf metrics collection in high-volume microservices architectures, feeding data into Grafana Mimir for real-time analytics and anomaly detection. Mimir’s powerful querying enables teams to detect anomalies and quickly respond, maintaining high service availability and performance.

Feedback

Thank you for being part of our community! If you have any general feedback or found any bugs on these pages, we welcome and encourage your input. Please submit your feedback in the InfluxDB community Slack.