ExpertObservability & Monitoring

OpenTelemetry Collector Pipeline: Tempo & Mimir

Unify your observability pipeline by using the OpenTelemetry Collector as a central ingestion point for telemetry data, processing and exporting it to optimized backends.

OpenTelemetryGrafana TempoGrafana Mimir

Prerequisites

Otel Collector binary or Docker image

Configuration Files

otel-collector.yaml/etc/otelcol/config.yaml

receivers:\n  otlp:\n    protocols:\n      grpc: {}\n      http: {}\nexporters:\n  otlp/tempo:\n    endpoint: "tempo:4317"\n    tls: { insecure: true }\n  prometheusremotewrite:\n    endpoint: "http://mimir:9009/api/v1/push"\nservice:\n  pipelines:\n    traces:\n      receivers: [otlp]\n      exporters: [otlp/tempo]\n    metrics:\n      receivers: [otlp]\n      exporters: [prometheusremotewrite]

Explanation:Receives OTLP data and routes traces to Tempo via gRPC, and metrics to Mimir via Prometheus remote write.

Verification Steps

Checks the collector health extension.

$curl http://localhost:13133/health

Expected Output{"status":"Server available"}

Production Gotchas

Always use the batch processor in the pipeline to compress data and reduce network calls to backends.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why use Otel Collector instead of sending directly?

It provides a vendor-agnostic buffer, allowing you to manipulate data (filter, batch, enrich) and change backends without modifying application code.