Using OpenTelemetry Collector

Now that we're familiar with the core components of OpenTelemetry Collector and OTLP, it's time to start using the collector with the grocery store. The following diagram gives us an idea of how telemetry data is currently configured and where we are trying to go with this chapter:

Figure 8.7 – Before and after diagrams of exporting telemetry data

At the beginning of this chapter, we installed the OTLP exporters for Python via the opentelemetry-exporter-otlp package. This, in turn, installed the packages that are available for each protocol and encoding:

• opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-grpc
• opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http
• opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-json-http

The package that includes all the protocols and the encoding is a convenient way to start, but once you're familiar with the requirements for your environment, you'll want to choose a specific encoding and protocol...