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Discover the keys to this winning combination as we answer frequently asked questions about how Dynatrace supports OpenTelemetry.
Those in the observability space are no strangers to OpenTelemetry (OTel), a vendor-neutral, open source project of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).
Born in 2019 from the merger of the OpenCensus (Google Open Source) and OpenTracing (CNCF) projects, OpenTelemetry has become the de-facto standard for instrumenting, generating, collecting, and exporting telemetry data. Since its inception, it has become one of the CNCF’s most active open source projects — second only to Kubernetes. This, in part, is because the project is backed by most major observability vendors, including Dynatrace.
With that in mind, it’s clear OpenTelemetry is here to stay, so it’s important to understand how Dynatrace supports OpenTelemetry.
OpenTelemetry and Dynatrace: Frequently asked questions
Does Dynatrace ingest OpenTelemetry data natively?
Dynatrace accepts data in the native OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) format via HTTP. However, gRPC is not yet supported.
What OpenTelemetry signals does Dynatrace support?
Dynatrace currently supports the following:
What information do I need to send OpenTelemetry data to Dynatrace?
Sending OpenTelemetry data to Dynatrace requires the following:
1. Dynatrace tenant. Each user— or, more likely, organization — is assigned a tenant.
When sending OpenTelemetry data from an application to Dynatrace, teams need to specify the Dynatrace OTLP endpoint (Dynatrace uses this to receive data), which includes your tenant name:
https://{your-dynatrace-tenant}.live.dynatrace.com/api/v2/otlp
To find your Dynatrace tenant, visit the Dynatrace website and click the Login button on the top right-hand side of the screen.
This will take you to the sign-in page. Once you sign in, take note of the URL. It should look something like this:
https://{your-dynatrace-tenant}.apps.dynatrace.com
For more information about Dynatrace URLs, check out our doc. If you don’t yet have a Dynatrace tenant and want to try out Dynatrace, sign up for a free trial.
2. Dynatrace API token. The API token allows you to send OTel data to your Dynatrace tenant. It also specifies the type of data you’re allowed to send to Dynatrace. You will need to configure the following token scopes:
- Ingest logs (logs.ingest)
- Ingest metrics (metrics.ingest)
- Ingest OpenTelemetry traces (opentelemetryTrace.ingest)
To save time when creating your API token, use the Kubernetes Data Ingest template, which includes the aforementioned token scopes. View the doc to learn more about Dynatrace token scopes.
⇒The Dynatrace OTLP endpoint and API token are required to configure the OTLP HTTP exporter to send OpenTelemetry data to Dynatrace. Learn more.
Does Dynatrace support OpenTelemetry metrics?
Yes, but it’s important to note the following:
- Dynatrace requires metrics data to be sent with delta temporality and not cumulative temporality. If your application is unable to emit metrics with delta temporality, you can configure your OTel Collector to use the cumulativetodelta processor in your metrics pipeline. Learn more.
- By default, Dynatrace ingests the histogram’s min|max|sum|count values and drops the buckets. However, you can opt in to also ingest the buckets from explicit histograms. For more information, view the following documentation:
⇒Learn more about OTel metrics with Dynatrace.
Does Dynatrace have its own Collector distribution?
Yes, Dynatrace also has its own Collector distribution. It features a set of Collector components for sending observability data to Dynatrace from various sources. It stays up-to-date with upstream components of the opentelemetry-collector and opentelemetry-collector-contrib repositories.
In addition, the Dynatrace Collector distribution offers the following advantages:
- It is covered by Dynatrace support.
- Collector components are verified by Dynatrace.
- Security patches are independent of OpenTelemetry Collector releases.
What languages does Dynatrace support for OpenTelemetry data ingest?
Since Dynatrace supports OTLP natively, it supports any languages that emit data in OTLP format. That is, it supports all languages supported by OpenTelemetry:
Can I use the OpenTelemetry Demo to send OTel data to Dynatrace?
Yes. Our blog breaks down how to run the OpenTelemetry Demo with Dynatrace.
What can Dynatrace do with my OpenTelemetry data?
Dynatrace stores all data in Grail™, a unified and purpose-built data lakehouse optimized for storing and analyzing traces, metrics, logs, and more.
It allows users to ask meaningful questions, get useful answers, and act effectively on what they learn. That is, Dynatrace makes unified observability possible.
Here are a few of the many Dynatrace capabilities:
- View your traces in the Distributed Tracing App.
- View your logs, including logs related to the distributed traces, in the Logs App.
- Chart, analyze, set up alerts, and forecast any of your metrics.
- Query and correlate traces.
- Analyze your deployed services with automated health analysis and more in the Services App.
- Keep your Kubernetes clusters healthy through automated AI-driven health pattern detection.
What’s next?
If you’re interested in learning first-hand what OpenTelemetry and Dynatrace can do together, dive into the following resources:
- Check out the Dynatrace Playground with your existing account, or sign up directly for the Dynatrace Playground for a free tour. Once in the Playground, you can use Dynatrace to explore pre-populated OpenTelemetry data.
- Get started with a free trial and ingest your own OpenTelemetry data today.
- Configure the OpenTelemetry Demo to send data to Dynatrace, or instrument your own application.