OpenTelemetry observability

The Keptn Lifecycle Toolkit (KLT) makes any Kubernetes deployment observable. In other words, it creates a distributed, end-to-end trace of what Kubernetes does in the context of a Deployment. To do this, Keptn introduces the concept of an application, which is an abstraction that connects multiple Workloads that logically belong together, even if they use different deployment strategies.

This means that:

• You can readily see why a deployment takes so long or why it fails, even when using multiple deployment strategies.
• KLT can capture DORA metrics and expose them as OpenTelemetry metrics

The observability data is an amalgamation of the following:

• DORA metrics are collected out of the box when the Lifecycle Toolkit is enabled
• OpenTelemetry runs traces that show everything that happens in the Kubernetes cluster
• Custom Keptn metrics that you can use to monitor information from all the data providers configured in your cluster

All this information can be displayed with dashboard tools such as Grafana.

For an introduction to using OpenTelemetry with Keptn metrics, see the Standardize observability getting started guide.

DORA metrics

DORA metrics are an industry-standard set of measurements; see the following for a description:

• What are DORA Metrics and Why Do They Matter?
• Are you an Elite DevOps Performer? Find out with the Four Keys Project

DORA metrics provide information such as:

• How many deployments happened in the last six hours?
• Time between deployments
• Deployment time between versions
• Average time between versions.

The Keptn Lifecycle Toolkit starts collecting these metrics as soon as you apply basic annotations to the Workload resource. Metrics are collected only for the resources that are annotated.

To view DORA metrics, run the following command:

kubectl port-forward -n keptn-lifecycle-toolkit-system \
   svc/lifecycle-operator-metrics-service 2222

Then view the metrics at:

http://localhost:2222/metrics

DORA metrics can be displayed on Grafana or whatever dashboard application you choose.

OpenTelemetry

Requirements for OpenTelemetry

To access OpenTelemetry metrics with the Keptn Lifecycle Toolkit, you must have the following on your cluster:

• An OpenTelemetry collector. See OpenTelemetry Collector for more information.
• Prometheus Operator. See Prometheus Operator Setup.
• The Prometheus Operator must have the required permissions to watch resources of the keptn-lifecycle-toolkit-system namespace (see Setup for Monitoring other Namespaces).

If you want a dashboard for reviewing metrics and traces, you need:

• Grafana or the dashboard of your choice. See Grafana Setup.

• Jaeger or a similar tool if you want traces. See Jaeger Setup.

To install Prometheus into the monitoring namespace, using the default configuration included with KLT, use the following commands. Use similar commands if you define a different configuration::

kubectl create namespace monitoring
kubectl apply --server-side -f config/prometheus/setup
kubectl apply -f config/prometheus/

Integrate OpenTelemetry into the Keptn Lifecycle Toolkit

To integrate OpenTelementry into the Keptn Lifecycle Toolkit:

• Apply basic annotations for your Deployment resource to integrate the Lifecycle Toolkit into your Kubernetes cluster.
• To expose OpenTelemetry metrics, define a KeptnConfig resource that has the spec.OTelCollectorUrl field populated with the URL of the OpenTelemetry collector.

The otel-collector.yaml is the OpenTelementry manifest file for the PodtatoHead example, located in the config directory. To deploy and configure the OpenTelemetry collector using this manifest, the command is:

kubectl apply -f config/otel-collector.yaml \
    -n keptn-lifecycle-toolkit-system

Use the following command to confirm that the pod for the otel-collector deployment is up and running:

$ kubectl get pods -lapp=opentelemetry \
    -n keptn-lifecycle-toolkit-system

NAME                              READY   STATUS    RESTARTS      AGE
otel-collector-6fc4cc84d6-7hnvp   1/1     Running   0             92m

If you want to extend the OTel Collector configuration to send your telemetry data to other Observability platform, you can edit the Collector ConfigMap with the following command:

kubectl edit configmap otel-collector-conf \
    -n keptn-lifecycle-toolkit-system

When the otel-collector pod is up and running, restart the keptn-scheduler and lifecycle-operator so they can pick up the new configuration:

kubectl rollout restart deployment \
    -n keptn-lifecycle-toolkit-system keptn-scheduler lifecycle-operator

KLT begins to collect OpenTelemetry metrics as soon as the Deployment resource has the basic annotations to integrate KLT in the cluster.

Access Keptn metrics as OpenTelemetry metrics

Keptn metrics can be exposed as OpenTelemetry (OTel) metrics via port 9999 of the KLT metrics-operator.

To access the metrics, use the following command:

kubectl port-forward deployment/metrics-operator 9999 -n keptn-lifecycle-toolkit-system

You can access the metrics from your browser at: http://localhost:9999