The OpenTelemetry Collector: A deep dive

What is the OpenTelemetry Collector?

The Collector is a standalone service that can receive telemetry data, process it, and export it to various backends. Think of it as the central pipeline engine— you can define how data flows through it, from multiple inputs (receivers) to any number of outputs (exporters), applying transformations or filtering (processors) along the way.

OpenTelemetry Collector Deployment Patterns

We’ll look at two common deployment patterns: Agent mode (Collector runs locally on each host) vs. Gateway mode (a central or multi-layer aggregator). Depending on scale and architectural preferences, you might use one or both.

Roll-your-own Collector

Keep in mind that the Collector can be customized (e.g., built using the Collector builder). OpAMP is an emerging protocol for remotely managing and configuring collectors, which Bindplane leverages for streamlined configuration.