What core signals does OpenTelemetry aim to support?

OpenTelemetry aims to support three core signals: Metrics, Traces, and Logs. These signals are fundamental in the observability landscape, providing a comprehensive view of how applications function and how users interact with them.

Metrics represent quantitative measurements that describe the performance attributes of systems, applications, or services over time. They help in monitoring the overall health and performance, allowing teams to set thresholds and alert on anomalies.

Traces provide a way to follow requests as they propagate through different services in a distributed system. They come in handy for understanding the flow of operations and identifying latency issues, bottlenecks, or errors in complex environments.

Logs capture discrete events and messages generated by applications, which are vital for understanding the context around an application’s behavior and diagnosing issues when they arise.

By combining these three core signals, OpenTelemetry provides a holistic approach that supports monitoring, troubleshooting, and enhancing the performance of applications.