Optimizing Kafka Tracing with OpenTelemetry: Boost Visibility & Performance
Blog post from New Relic
The blog post explains how to monitor Kafka clusters using distributed tracing and OpenTelemetry, highlighting the challenges due to Kafka's decoupled and asynchronous nature. It explores two approaches to instrumentation: zero-code and manual. Zero-code instrumentation, which uses an OpenTelemetry agent, allows for quick setup without modifying source code but offers limited customization and visibility. On the other hand, manual instrumentation involves adding dependencies and packages to the source code, providing more detailed and customizable telemetry at the cost of increased implementation effort. The author uses a sample application to demonstrate these techniques, showcasing how zero-code instrumentation provides a basic overview of service interactions while manual instrumentation offers deeper insights into specific code execution. The blog encourages exploring OpenTelemetry for better observability and invites readers to engage with the author for further discussion or questions.