OpenTelemetry FAQ

[Erwan.Paccard]

What do I need to know about OTel and using it with AppDynamics?

Get up to speed on OpenTelemetry and how AppDynamics will support it,  expanding telemetry data sources for our advanced analytics, AI/ML, and troubleshooting capabilities.

In this article…

About the technology

• What is OpenTelemetry (OTel)?
• I understand what OTel is, but what is it not?

How is AppDynamics supporting OTel?

• How do I access OTel capabilities?
• I thought AppDynamics could already collect metrics, events, logs and traces/BTs?
  What’s changing, a...
• How much OTel data can I get?

Additional Resources

ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY

What is OpenTelemetry (OTel)?

Owned by the Linux Foundation, OpenTelemetry is a vendor-neutral standard for collecting telemetry data for applications, their supporting infrastructures and services.

Read the details in the What is OpenTelemetry (OT) and why should you care? Post on the AppDynamics Blog.

TIP | See additional resources below. And don’t forget to subscribe if you want notifications of updates to this FAQ (click the 3-dot menu, then “Subscribe”)

I understand what OTel is—but what is it not? 

While OpenTelemetry provides a solution similar to AppDynamics Agents, there are some differences and common misconceptions:

• It is not only APM
  OpenTelemetry started as a standard for cloud native application monitoring, but the scope quickly expanded. With special interest groups looking into “Client Side Telemetry” and eBPF, OTel is turning into a cross-cutting standard for telemetry spanning from Digital End-User Monitoring (DEM), over APM, DB and Infrastructure Observability.
  
  
• It is OTel
  OpenTelemetry is the successor to OpenTracing (OT) and OpenCensus, so to avoid confusion, the community uses OTel as an abbreviation.
  
  
• “Agent” can mean different things
  In the context of OpenTelemetry, you will find the term ‘Agent’ being used for two different things: 
• A collector running on the same host as the app (sidecar)
• An auto-instrumentation agent which is equivalent to AppDynamics agents
  
  
• Agents are not the only way to collect telemetry
  It is not mandatory to use an agent for auto-instrumentation OpenTelemetry. An application can support OTel natively via an SDK, and there is no need to inject an agent. Actually, one of the goals is to make every library and application observable out-of-the box by having them call the APIs directly.

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APPDYNAMICS AND OPENTELEMETRY

What is AppDynamics doing to support OTel?

Once ingested, OpenTelemetry data will be a first-class citizen, treated as any data coming from our own agents, on which you can have health rules, flowmaps, and more. 

Starting in Spring 2022, we will cover IT Ops use cases for health assessment and alerting.  Expect additional use cases in due course, too.

How do I access AppDynamics OTel capabilities?

Depending on your region, you’ll see a new OTel tab in the menu bar once you upgrade to AppDynamics version 22.3.

NOTE | Please check the current list of AppDynamics for OpenTelemetry supported regions.

To use AppDynamics OTel, you will need to:

• Configure your OTel collectors
• Use the generated  API key with the Endpoint to connect to the AppDynamics Controller
• If you are considering ingesting OpenTelemetry data with the AppDynamics Java and Node.js Agents, they should be updated to the latest version.
  
  

I thought AppDynamics could already collect metrics, events, logs and traces/BTs? So, what's changing and why?

With the OTel standard, you can now leverage from more telemetry data sources to enrich AppDynamics' advanced analytics, AI/ML, and troubleshooting capabilities.

How much OTel data can I get?

Each AppDynamics customer instance will be able to access 350 GB of OTel data per month, free of additional charge. See more information in the Licenses and Entitlements documentation.

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Additional Resources

Documentation:

• AppDynamics for OpenTelemetry
• AppDynamics for OpenTelemetry Supported Regions

AppDynamics Blog posts:

• What is OpenTelemetry and why should you care?
• OpenTelemetry: How Cisco and AppDynamics are contributing to the future of observability
• AppDynamics for OpenTelemetry: Accelerating innovation across software development ecosystems 

Demonstration Video and product information: AppDynamics for OpenTelemetry video 

Live Webinar: Embracing AppDynamics for OpenTelemetry (April 27, 2022)