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Introduction to OpenTelemetry for Kubernetes

New Relic's OpenTelemetry observability for Kubernetes provides a comprehensive, open-source solution for monitoring your clusters. It integrates seamlessly with our robust Kubernetes UI, which is compatible with both OpenTelemetry and our proprietary Kubernetes instrumentation. This provider-agnostic design allows you to choose the instrumentation method that best suits your needs.

This document guides you through monitoring a Kubernetes cluster using OpenTelemetry. It details how to install the nr-k8s-otel-collector Helm chart within your cluster and deploy the necessary collectors to enable comprehensive observability.

By integrating Kubernetes components into the OpenTelemetry Collector, we can transmit metrics, events, and logs directly to New Relic. These telemetry signals automatically enhance our out-of-the-box experiences such as the Kubernetes Navigator, overview dashboard, Kubernetes events, or Kubernetes APM summary page.

How it works?

The nr-k8s-otel-collector Helm chart deploys OpenTelemetry Collectors configured to gather comprehensive telemetry data from your Kubernetes cluster.

Architecture diagram showing OpenTelemetry Daemonset collectors on worker nodes pulling metrics from Kubelet and cAdvisor, and a Deployment collector pulling metrics from Kube-state-metrics, all processing data before sending to New Relic.
  • Daemonset Collector: Deployed on each worker node. It collects metrics from the underlying host, cAdvisor, and Kubelet, and gathers logs from containers.
  • Deployment Collector: Deployed on the control plane node. It collects metrics from kube-state-metrics and Kubernetes cluster events. This collector is often a single instance managing cluster-wide data.

OpenTelemetry components in New Relic Kubernetes collectors

The OpenTelemetry Collector employs various component types to process and transform the collected telemetry data. These components are essential for enriching, filtering, and formatting the data before it is sent to New Relic. You can use these components to add your own custom configurations by creating OpenTelemetry Pipelines using extra_config section in the Helm chart.

Component type

Component name

Purpose

Collector

Receivers

OTLP

Gathers telemetry transmitted over HTTP.

Daemonset, Deployment

prometheus/ksm

Scrapes metrics relevant to Kubernetes resource states, such as deployments, pods, and nodes.

Deployment

prometheus/controlplane

Monitors control plane components.

Deployment

k8s_events

Scrapes events like pod creations and deletions, scaling activities, and failure events.

Deployment

hostmetrics

Scrapes metrics from the underliying node.

Daemonset

kubeletstats

Scrapes metrics from Kubelet.

Daemonset

prometheus

Scrapes metrics from cAdvisor.

Daemonset

filelog

Gathers logs from containers.

Daemonset

Processors

batch

Batches and optimizes telemetry data flow.

Daemonset, Deployment

groupbyattrs

Groups metrics, span and logs.

Daemonset, Deployment

transform metrictransform

Modifies telemetry to customize ingest.

Daemonset, Deployment

filter

Optimize ingest by removing not relevant telemetry.

Daemonset, Deployment

resource

Apply changes on resource attributes.

Daemonset, Deployment

resourcedetection

Detects resource information.

Daemonset, Deployment

k8sattributes

Enriches telemetry data with K8s attributes.

Daemonset, Deployment

attributes

Enriches telemetry with attributes.

Daemonset, Deployment

cumulativetodelta

Transform cumulative metrics to delta.

Daemonset, Deployment

memory_limiter

Manages memory consumption.

Daemonset, Deployment

batch

Batches and optimizes telemetry data flow.

Daemonset, Deployment

Exporters

otlphttp/newrelic

Sends telemetry data using the OpenTelemetry Protocol to New Relic.

Daemonset, Deployment

Pipelines

metrics

Manages ingest, process, and export of metrics data.

Daemonset, Deployment

Connectors

routing/nr_pipelines

Enriches telemetry data with Kubernetes metadata.

Daemonset, Deployment

Install OpenTelemetry Collector for Kubernetes

Instrument your Kubernetes Cluster in New Relic using OpenTelemetry Collectors.

Advanced configuration for OpenTelemetry Kubernetes

Customize your OpenTelemetry Collector configuration for Kubernetes in New Relic.

Troubleshooting OpenTelemetry for Kubernetes

Learn how to troubleshoot issues with the OpenTelemetry Collector in Kubernetes.

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