In this talk from the Kubernetes, Cloud Native and Platform Engineering Meetup Munich, I explore observability from first principles and explain how to add OpenTelemetry to applications and their dependencies.
The talk covers trace context, APIs and SDKs, OTLP, and semantic conventions before comparing four automatic instrumentation techniques: monkey patching, bytecode instrumentation, compile-time instrumentation, and eBPF. It also explores native instrumentation, instrumentation libraries, and practical steps for contributing to the OpenTelemetry ecosystem.