How to OTel: A blueprint for OpenTelemetry adoption

OpenTelemetry (OTel) is increasingly recognized as the standard for observability, with major companies like AWS and Google transitioning from proprietary agents to OTel standards. The widespread adoption is hindered by challenges in execution, as many organizations mistakenly treat OTel as a simple tool replacement rather than a new operational model. A strategic blueprint for successful OTel adoption emphasizes the importance of context over mere vendor agnosticity, recommending a "Collector First" architecture that decouples data generation from destination and utilizes both automatic and manual application instrumentation. The approach involves a gradual migration using the strangler pattern, beginning with Kubernetes, to avoid disruptions in IT environments. Organizations are encouraged to operationalize OTel with clear ownership of schemas and pipelines, ensuring schema consistency and validation to maintain data usability and compliance. As OpenTelemetry becomes the default standard, it is crucial to adopt strategies that prioritize context, consistency, and gradual migration to future-proof observability architectures.