OpenTelemetry Architecture Diagram
Purpose: For platform engineers and operators, shows the high-level telemetry flow for workloads that send traces, metrics, and logs through the OpenTelemetry stack used with the openCenter observability platform.
This page is a conceptual diagram, not an exact manifest-level deployment reference. For service-specific configuration and operational details, use:
-
../operations/services/opentelemetry-kube-stack.md[OpenTelemetry Kube Stack Configuration Guide]
-
../reference/services/opentelemetry-kube-stack.md[OpenTelemetry Kube Stack Service Reference]
Diagram
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Application Layer │
│ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ │
│ │ Apps │ │ Apps │ │ Apps │ │ Apps │ │
│ │ (OTEL │ │ (OTEL │ │ (OTEL │ │ (OTEL │ │
│ │ SDK) │ │ SDK) │ │ SDK) │ │ SDK) │ │
│ └─────┬────┘ └─────┬────┘ └─────┬────┘ └─────┬────┘ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
└────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼───────┘
│ │ │ │
┌────▼──────────────▼──────────────▼──────────────▼──────┐
│ OpenTelemetry Collector (DaemonSet) │
│ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌─────────┐ │
│ │ Traces │ │ Metrics │ │ Logs │ │
│ │Receiver │ │Receiver │ │Receiver │ │
│ └────┬────┘ └────┬────┘ └────┬────┘ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ ┌────▼────────────▼────────────▼────┐ │
│ │ Processing Pipeline │ │
│ └────┬────────────┬────────────┬────┘ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ ┌────▼────┐ ┌────▼────┐ ┌────▼────┐ │
│ │ Traces │ │ Metrics │ │ Logs │ │
│ │Exporter │ │Exporter │ │Exporter │ │
│ └─────────┘ └─────────┘ └─────────┘ │
└─────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────────┘
│ │ │
│ ┌────▼─────┐ │
│ │Prometheus│ │
│ │ Scraper │ │
│ └────┬─────┘ │
│ │ │
┌───────▼────────────▼────────────▼──────┐
│ Storage Layer │
│ ┌──────────┐ ┌────────────┐ ┌────────┐│
│ │ Traces │ │ Metrics │ │ Logs ││
│ │ Backend │ │(Prometheus │ │Backend ││
│ │ │ │ TSDB) │ │ ││
│ └──────────┘ └─────┬──────┘ └────────┘│
└─────────────────────┼──────────────────┘
│
┌─────▼──────┐
│AlertManager│
└─────┬──────┘
│
┌─────▼───────┐
│Visualization│
│ (Grafana) │
└─────────────┘How to Read This Diagram
-
Applications emit telemetry through OpenTelemetry SDKs or compatible endpoints.
-
OpenTelemetry collectors receive and process traces, metrics, and logs.
-
Metrics are typically scraped or forwarded into the Prometheus-based metrics layer.
-
Logs and traces are exported to the observability backends used by the platform.
-
Grafana sits at the visualization layer for dashboards, exploration, and troubleshooting.