> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.obsy.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# OpenTelemetry overview

> How Obsy manages your OTel collectors, sampling, telemetry quality, and cost.

OpenTelemetry is an open standard for collecting traces, metrics, and logs from your services. Obsy wraps the full OTel lifecycle — from collector deployment to telemetry quality reviews.

## What Obsy deploys

For each Kubernetes cluster you register, Obsy installs:

| Component          | Type                       | Role                                                                                                    |
| ------------------ | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **OTel Gateway**   | `Deployment` (1+ replicas) | Receives OTLP from your services; applies sampling, filtering, and batching; exports to Datadog/Grafana |
| **Node Collector** | `DaemonSet` (one per node) | Collects host metrics, kubelet stats, and container logs from every node                                |

Both are deployed to the `obsy-system` namespace via the official `open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector` Helm chart.

## Pipeline

```
Your service (OTel SDK)
        ↓  OTLP gRPC/HTTP :4317/:4318
   OTel Gateway (obsy-system)
        ↓
  ┌── Memory Limiter ──────────┐ drops data if memory > soft limit
  ├── K8s Attributes ──────────┤ enriches with pod/namespace/node
  ├── Health Check Filter ─────┤ drops /health, /ping, /metrics
  ├── Custom Drop Rules ───────┤ optional: drop by endpoint, method, user-agent
  ├── Sampling ───────────────┤ probabilistic or tail-based
  └── Batch Processor ─────────┘ buffers before export
        ↓
  Datadog / Grafana / Both
```

## OTel features in Obsy

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Collector management" icon="satellite-dish" href="/otel/collector">
    Install, monitor, and reinstall collectors per cluster.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Sampling" icon="filter" href="/otel/sampling">
    Reduce telemetry volume and cost without losing critical signals.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Telemetry Review" icon="magnifying-glass-chart" href="/otel/telemetry-review">
    Per-service quality and cost analysis with AI-powered recommendations.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Reliability Reports" icon="chart-bar" href="/otel/reliability-reports">
    OTel collector health reports with golden signal coverage.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Health Monitors" icon="bell" href="/otel/monitors">
    11 pre-built monitors for collector health in Datadog or Grafana.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Telemetry signals

Obsy works with all three OTel signal types:

| Signal      | What it captures                        | Primary use                               |
| ----------- | --------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- |
| **Traces**  | Request spans across services           | Latency analysis, RCA, dependency mapping |
| **Metrics** | Counters, gauges, histograms            | Dashboards, monitors, SLOs                |
| **Logs**    | Structured and unstructured log records | Correlation, debugging                    |