OpenTelemetry, as an open-source observability framework, offers a vendor-neutral approach to collecting, processing, and exporting telemetry data such as traces, metrics, and logs.

This document aims to guide you through the process of migrating to OpenTelemetry APM. It covers the key steps involved, including preparing your environment and updating instrumentation.

Python

The OpenTelemetry Python consists of two main packages: API and SDK available as part of PyPI.

Installation

Instrumentation Setup

The basic steps involved in initialization a tracer and creating spans have been documented at https://opentelemetry.io/docs/languages/python/instrumentation/#traces

New Relic supports auto instrumentation of functions through the config file using https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/apm/agents/python-agent/configuration/python-agent-configuration/#txn-tracer-function. OpenTelemetry does not have such support but function spans can be easily created with minimal code through function decorators: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/languages/python/instrumentation/#creating-spans-with-decorators

Instrumentation Libraries

You may also want to install certain instrumentation-libraries to auto-instrument standard Python packages. A list of available instrumentation-libraries is available here - https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python-contrib/tree/main/instrumentation#readme

Examples

Common code scenarios and some example applications have been instrumented using OpenTelemetry. These are available at:

https://opentelemetry-python.readthedocs.io/en/stable/examples/

https://opentelemetry.io/docs/languages/python/cookbook/

Java

Installation

Zero-code instrumentation with Java uses a Java agent JAR attached to any Java 8+ application. It dynamically injects bytecode to capture telemetry from many popular libraries and frameworks.

Instrumentation Setup

To setup the instrumentation and use the APIs for manual instrumentation,

1. Initialize the SDK

2. Initialize Tracing

3. Create Spans

Instrumentation Libraries

OpenTelemetry Java can automatically instrument and support a huge number of libraries, frameworks, and application servers listed out below

https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java-instrumentation/blob/main/docs/supported-libraries.md#libraries--frameworks

Examples

A set of fully-functional, working examples of using the OpenTelemetry Java APIs and SDK that should all be able to be run locally is present at https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java-examples#java-opentelemetry-examples

JavaScript

Installation

Instrumentation Setup

The basic steps involved in initialization a tracer has been documented at https://opentelemetry.io/docs/languages/js/instrumentation/#initialize-tracing

For creating spans using the OpenTelemetry JS API, the following doc is useful: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/languages/js/instrumentation/#initialize-tracing

If you only want to use auto-instrumentation and not manually create any spans for your functions, look at the instrumentations libraries section below.

Instrumentation Libraries

For instrumentation-libraries to auto-instrument common third party npm packages. Each instrumentation library is an NPM package. A list of available instrumentation-libraries is available here -https://opentelemetry.io/ecosystem/registry/?language=js&component=instrumentation

Examples

Some example applications for common use cases and packages have been instrumented using OpenTelemetry.

https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-js/tree/main/examples

Go

Installation

Instrumentation Setup

The basic steps involved in initialization a tracer has been documented at https://opentelemetry.io/docs/languages/go/instrumentation/#getting-a-tracer

For creating spans using the OpenTelemetry JS API, the following doc is useful: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/languages/go/instrumentation/#creating-spans

If you only want to use auto-instrumentation and not manually create any spans for your functions, look at the instrumentations libraries section below.

Instrumentation Libraries

For instrumentation-libraries to auto-instrument common third party npm packages. Each instrumentation library is a package installable through a command like
go get go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/{import-path}/otel{package-name}
A list of all the available instrumentation-libraries is here - https://opentelemetry.io/ecosystem/registry/?language=go&component=instrumentation

Examples

Some example applications for common use cases and packages have been instrumented using OpenTelemetry.

https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/tree/main/example

.NET

Installation

Instrumentation Setup

To setup the instrumentation and use the APIs for manual instrumentation,

1. Initialize the SDK

2. Initialize Tracing

3. Create Activities

Instrumentation Libraries

To avoid spending time to manually add traces, logs, and metrics to the third-party libraries and frameworks you use, you can use the instrumentation libraries supported for auto instrumentation:

https://opentelemetry.io/ecosystem/registry/?language=dotnet

https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet

Examples

Basic examples for .NET applications: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-dotnet/tree/main/examples

Zero Code Instrumentation

Zero-code instrumentation adds the OpenTelemetry API and SDK capabilities to your application typically as an agent or agent-like installation.

Typically, zero-code instrumentation adds instrumentation for the libraries you’re using (needs to be set up for the libraries used by your application). This means that requests and responses, database calls, message queue calls, and so forth are what are instrumented. Your application’s code, however, is not typically instrumented. To instrument your code, you’ll need to manually instrument using the language specific OpenTelemetry APIs.

Automatic instrumentation is available for the following languages:

1. https://opentelemetry.io/docs/zero-code/python/

2. https://opentelemetry.io/docs/zero-code/java/

3. https://opentelemetry.io/docs/zero-code/js/

4. https://opentelemetry.io/docs/zero-code/net/