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Principles
- Purpose: every signal answers a question someone asks.
- Consistency: the same names, units and labels across services.
- Context: traces linked to logs and metrics through shared identifiers.
- Restraint: drop what is never used.
Techniques
- Head sampling decides at the start of a trace; tail sampling decides once the trace is complete and can keep errors and slow requests.
- Filtering and redaction in the Collector remove noise and sensitive data.
- Structured logs with stable fields are easier to search and cheaper to store.
Keep it clean
- Write down the telemetry standard and share it.
- Review new instrumentation like new code.
- Check periodically which data is used.
- Remove what is not.
Sources and further reading
- OpenTelemetry. Sampling. opentelemetry.io/docs/concepts/sampling/.
IICTP is a new independent credential and is not ISO/IEC 17024 accredited.