Hacking OpenTelemetry
summary
Shows a practical hack: a modified OpenTelemetry Collector that parses syslog JSON for trace_id/span_id and builds spans so uninstrumented apps that only emit logs become traceable. Implements a log→trace exporter that forwards original logs to Loki and reconstructed traces to Grafana Tempo and Dynatrace. Includes a Python script generating events, a compiled collector binary, and live demos proving the pipeline works end to end with traces visible in both backends.
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chapters (20)
- 0:00intro
- 0:21preface
- 1:04agenda
- 1:35observability pillars
- 3:02open telemetry - adopters and contributors
- 4:18components
- 5:17data flow
- 6:14tracing concepts
- 7:40a communicating scenario
- 8:02following a transaction
- 8:58tracking results - dynatrace
- 9:14grafana
- 9:48only logs available?
- 10:58collector modules and pipelines
- 11:39collector configuration
- 12:08from log to trace
- 13:10everything can be a span
- 13:41telemetry data storage
- 13:58demo
- 16:12thanks!
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