OpenTelemetry Metrics Exporter - OTLP
Status: Stable
General
OTLP Metrics Exporter is a Push Metric Exporter which sends metrics via the OpenTelemetry Protocol.
OTLP Metrics Exporter MUST support both Cumulative and Delta Aggregation Temporality.
The exporter MUST provide configuration according to the OpenTelemetry Protocol Exporter specification.
If a language provides a mechanism to automatically configure a
MetricReader to pair with the associated
Exporter (e.g., using the OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER environment
variable),
then by default:
- The exporter MUST be paired with a periodic exporting MetricReader.
- The exporter MUST configure the default aggregation temporality on the
basis of instrument kind using the
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_TEMPORALITY_PREFERENCEvariable as described below. - The exporter MUST configure the default aggregation on the basis of instrument kind using
the
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_DEFAULT_HISTOGRAM_AGGREGATIONvariable as described below if it is implemented.
Additional Configuration
| Name | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_TEMPORALITY_PREFERENCE | The aggregation temporality to use on the basis of instrument kind. | cumulative |
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_DEFAULT_HISTOGRAM_AGGREGATION | The default aggregation to use for histogram instruments. | explicit_bucket_histogram |
The recognized (case-insensitive) values for OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_TEMPORALITY_PREFERENCE are:
Cumulative: Choose cumulative aggregation temporality for all instrument kinds.Delta: Choose Delta aggregation temporality for Counter, Asynchronous Counter and Histogram instrument kinds, choose Cumulative aggregation for UpDownCounter and Asynchronous UpDownCounter instrument kinds.LowMemory: This configuration uses Delta aggregation temporality for Synchronous Counter and Histogram and uses Cumulative aggregation temporality for Synchronous UpDownCounter, Asynchronous Counter, and Asynchronous UpDownCounter instrument kinds.
The “LowMemory” choice is so-named because the SDK can under certain conditions use less memory in this configuration than the others. Comparatively, the “cumulative” choice forces the SDK to maintain a delta-to-cumulative conversion for Synchronous Counter and Histogram instruments, while the “delta” choice forces the SDK to maintain a cumulative-to-delta conversion for Asynchronous Counter instruments.
The recognized (case-insensitive) values for OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_DEFAULT_HISTOGRAM_AGGREGATION are:
explicit_bucket_histogram: Use Explicit Bucket Histogram Aggregation.base2_exponential_bucket_histogram: Use Base2 Exponential Bucket Histogram Aggregation.