How to send traces to Grafana Cloud's Tempo service with OpenTelemetry Collector

Grafana Cloud's Tempo service, currently in beta, allows users to send traces using open standards and interoperability, offering a flexible solution compatible with various tools. The service is accessible via a gRPC endpoint conforming to the OpenTelemetry TraceService with HTTP Basic authorization, enabling any tool that can handle HTTP headers to send traces. This tutorial demonstrates how to configure the OpenTelemetry Collector for sending traces to Grafana Cloud. Users are guided through gathering necessary credentials, creating and configuring the otel-config.yaml file, and using docker-compose to run the collector and the Jaeger HotROD demo for generating and sending trace data. The post emphasizes the flexibility of using Grafana Cloud through its adherence to industry standards and provides a starting point for those interested in exploring its capabilities, including both free and paid plan options.

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