I’ve specialized in monitoring and observability for 27 years now, and I’ve seen a lot of tools and techniques come and go (RMon, anyone?); and more than a few come and stay (rumors of the death of SNMP have been – and continue to be – greatly exaggerated). Lately I’ve been exploring one of the more recent improvements in the space – OpenTelemetry (which I’m abbreviating to “OTel” for the remainder of this blog). I wrote about my decision to dive into OTel recently: „What’s Got Me Interested in OpenTelemetry—And Pursuing Certification„.
For the most part, I’m enjoying the journey. But there’s a problem that has existed with observability for a while now, and it’s something OTel is not helping. The title of this post hints at the issue, but I want to be more explicit. Let’s start with some comparison shopping.