OTEL Collector with Cloud Pipelines

Configure the OTEL collector to send data to Edge Delta Cloud Pipelines.

3 minute read

A cloud pipeline is able to collect data from third party agents. In this scenario you do not need to install an Edge Delta agent in your environment, but rather point your existing agent, such as an OTEL collector, to an Edge Delta cloud pipeline. On the cloud pipeline, you configure an OTLP input node.

OTEL Collector

The OTLP source node consumes data items directly from OTLP configured data sources. The node is configured with the port that the agent should listen on.

Configure OTLP

To configure the OTLP source node, you must obtain the port number from the OTLP configuration:

Instrumentation Libraries: When using the OpenTelemetry SDKs, the port used to emit OTLP logs is part of the exporter configuration. The endpoint (which includes the host and port) is set when setting up the OpenTelemetry exporter within your application code. See Instrument Code using OpenTelemetry.
OpenTelemetry Collector: The port number on which the collector should send outgoing OTLP data is specified in the exporter section.
Zero-Code Instrumentation Agents: Similar to the instrumentation libraries, auto-instrumentation agents are configured to send data to a specified endpoint. This configuration includes the port number to which OTLP logs will be sent. See Instrument Code using OpenTelemetry.
Sidecars: In a Kubernetes environment, a sidecar that runs an instance of the OpenTelemetry Collector is set up using a configuration file, in which you can find the port for the OTLP receiver and exporter.
Log Routers and Forwarders: Log routers and forwarders may have plugins or output configurations that support OTLP. Within these configurations,the endpoint is defined, including the port, where the logs should be sent in OTLP format.

Example Collector Configuration (Cloud Pipeline)

gRPC (Cloud Pipeline)

If you are sending OTEL telemetry from the collector to a cloud pipeline, you update the Collector configuration with exporters pointing to the cloud pipeline endpoints. You use secure TLS and port 443:

    exporters:
      otlp/ed-data-supply_trace: 
        endpoint: '12345678-1a2b-3c4d-5e6f-7890ghijklmn-grpc-us-west2-cf.aws.edgedelta.com:443'  
        tls:
          insecure: false
      otlp/ed-data-supply_metric: 
        endpoint: '12345678-1a2b-3c4d-5e6f-7890ghijklmn-grpc-us-west2-cf.aws.edgedelta.com:443'
        tls:
          insecure: false
      otlp/ed-data-supply_log: 
        endpoint: '12345678-1a2b-3c4d-5e6f-7890ghijklmn-grpc-us-west2-cf.aws.edgedelta.com:443'
        tls:
          insecure: false

Replace the endpoint with one provided in your Cloud pipeline settings. Include the port number but no route is required. Do not include grpcs://.

And you update the Collector’s Pipeline to use the new exporters:

    service:
      extensions:
      - health_check
      pipelines:
        logs:
          exporters:
          ...
          - otlp/ed-data-supply_log
          ...
        metrics:
          exporters:
          ...
          - otlp/ed-data-supply_metric
          ...
        traces:
          exporters:
          ...
          - otlp/ed-data-supply_trace
          ...

The Cloud pipeline contains an OTLP input node by default, which does not need to be adjusted for this gRPC configuration:

- name: otlp_input
  type: otlp_input
  port: 4317
  protocol: grpc

HTTP (Cloud Pipeline)

To send OTLP telemetry to an Edge Delta Cloud pipeline you configure otlphttp exporters and disable compression. You use secure TLS and port 443 for HTTPS:

    exporters:
      otlphttp/ed-data-supply_trace:   
        endpoint: 'https://12345678-1a2b-3c4d-5e6f-7890ghijklmn-http-us-west2-cf.aws.edgedelta.com:443'  
        compression: none
        tls:
          insecure: false
      otlphttp/ed-data-supply_metric:   
        endpoint: 'https://12345678-1a2b-3c4d-5e6f-7890ghijklmn-http-us-west2-cf.aws.edgedelta.com:443' 
        compression: none
        tls:
          insecure: false    
      otlphttp/ed-data-supply_log:    
        endpoint: 'https://12345678-1a2b-3c4d-5e6f-7890ghijklmn-http-us-west2-cf.aws.edgedelta.com:443'  
        compression: none
        tls:
          insecure: false

Replace the endpoint with one provided in your Cloud pipeline settings. You include the port number at the end but no route is required. Unlike gRPC you include https://.

And you update the Collector’s Pipeline to use the new exporters:

    service:
      extensions:
      - health_check
      pipelines:
        logs:
          exporters:
          ...
          - otlphttp/ed-data-supply_log
          ...
        metrics:
          exporters:
          ...
          - otlphttp/ed-data-supply_metric
          ...
        traces:
          exporters:
          ...
          - otlphttp/ed-data-supply_trace
          ...

The Cloud pipeline contains an HTTP input node by default, which you need to delete. Replace it with an OTLP input node listening on port 80 for HTTP traffic:

- name: otlp_input_80
  type: otlp_input
  port: 80
  protocol: http
- name: otlp_input
  type: otlp_input
  port: 4317
  protocol: grpc

Note: You may also need to include an unused gRPC OTLP node to pass configuration validation.