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Nov 24, 2025
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Update Collect OpenTelemetry data and forward to Grafana topic #4909

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099bc03
Refactor topic to fix errors
clayton-cornell Nov 21, 2025
0baab2f
Merge branch 'main' into docs/update-collect-otel-data-grafana
clayton-cornell Nov 21, 2025
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40 changes: 25 additions & 15 deletions docs/sources/collect/opentelemetry-to-lgtm-stack.md
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -24,8 +24,10 @@ This topic describes how to:
* [`otelcol.auth.basic`][otelcol.auth.basic]
* [`otelcol.exporter.loki`][otelcol.exporter.loki]
* [`otelcol.exporter.otlp`][otelcol.exporter.otlp]
* [`otelcol.exporter.otlphttp`][otelcol.exporter.otlphttp]
* [`otelcol.exporter.prometheus`][otelcol.exporter.prometheus]
* [`otelcol.processor.batch`][otelcol.processor.batch]
* [`otelcol.processor.memory_limiter`][otelcol.processor.memory_limiter]
* [`otelcol.receiver.otlp`][otelcol.receiver.otlp]
* [`prometheus.remote_write`][prometheus.remote_write]

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -76,7 +78,7 @@ otelcol.exporter.otlp "default" {
The pipeline looks like this:

```plaintext
Metrics, Logs, Traces: OTLP Receiver → batch processor → OTLP Exporter
Metrics, Logs, Traces: OTLP Receiver → Batch Processor → OTLP HTTP Exporter
```

## Grafana Cloud
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -109,14 +111,19 @@ Replace the following:

This configuration uses the credentials stored in `otelcol.auth.basic "default"` to authenticate against the Grafana Cloud OTLP endpoints, and you should start to see your data arrive.

## Other platforms (Grafana Enterprise, Grafana Open Source)
{{< admonition type="note" >}}
For Grafana Cloud, use `otelcol.exporter.otlphttp` which sends data over HTTP/HTTPS.
Use `otelcol.exporter.otlp` for gRPC endpoints when working with other platforms.
{{< /admonition >}}

## Other platforms: Grafana Enterprise and Grafana Open Source

You can implement the following pipelines to send your data to Loki, Tempo, and Mimir or Prometheus.

```plaintext
Metrics: OTel → batch processor → Mimir or Prometheus remote write
Logs: OTel → batch processor → Loki exporter
Traces: OTel → batch processor → OTel exporter
Metrics: OTLP Receiver → Batch Processor → Prometheus Exporter → Prometheus Remote Write
Logs: OTLP Receiver → Batch Processor → Loki Exporter → Loki Write
Traces: OTLP Receiver → Batch Processor → OTLP Exporter (gRPC/HTTP)
```

### Grafana Loki
Expand All @@ -136,7 +143,7 @@ loki.write "default" {
}
```

To use Loki with basic-auth, which is required with Grafana Cloud Logs, you must configure the [`loki.write`][loki.write] component.
To use Loki with basic-auth, which Grafana Cloud Logs requires, you must configure the [`loki.write`][loki.write] component.
You can get the Loki configuration from the Loki **Details** page in the [Grafana Cloud Portal][].

```alloy
Expand All @@ -158,7 +165,7 @@ loki.write "grafana_cloud_logs" {

### Grafana Tempo

[Grafana Tempo][] is an open source, easy-to-use, scalable distributed tracing backend.
[Grafana Tempo][] is an open source, scalable distributed tracing backend.
Tempo can ingest OTLP directly, and you can use the OTLP exporter to send the traces to Tempo.

```alloy
Expand All @@ -169,13 +176,13 @@ otelcol.exporter.otlp "default" {
}
```

To use Tempo with basic-auth, which is required with Grafana Cloud Traces, you must use the [otelcol.auth.basic][] component.
To use Tempo with basic-auth, which Grafana Cloud Traces requires, you must use the [otelcol.auth.basic][] component.
You can get the Tempo configuration from the Tempo **Details** page in the [Grafana Cloud Portal][].

```alloy
otelcol.exporter.otlp "grafana_cloud_traces" {
otelcol.exporter.otlphttp "grafana_cloud_traces" {
client {
endpoint = "tempo-us-central1.grafana.net:443"
endpoint = "https://tempo-us-central1.grafana.net:443"
auth = otelcol.auth.basic.grafana_cloud_traces.handler
}
}
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -204,7 +211,7 @@ prometheus.remote_write "default" {
}
```

To use Prometheus with basic-auth, which is required with Grafana Cloud Metrics, you must configure the [`prometheus.remote_write`][prometheus.remote_write] component.
To use Prometheus with basic-auth, which Grafana Cloud Metrics requires, you must configure the [`prometheus.remote_write`][prometheus.remote_write] component.
You can get the Prometheus configuration from the Prometheus **Details** page in the [Grafana Cloud Portal][].

```alloy
Expand All @@ -227,6 +234,7 @@ prometheus.remote_write "grafana_cloud_metrics" {
### Put it all together

Instead of referencing `otelcol.exporter.otlp.default.input` in the output of `otelcol.processor.batch`, you need to reference the three exporters you set up.
For Grafana Cloud, use `otelcol.exporter.otlphttp` for traces to send data over HTTPS.
The final configuration becomes:

```alloy
Expand All @@ -250,13 +258,13 @@ otelcol.processor.batch "example" {
output {
metrics = [otelcol.exporter.prometheus.grafana_cloud_metrics.input]
logs = [otelcol.exporter.loki.grafana_cloud_logs.input]
traces = [otelcol.exporter.otlp.grafana_cloud_traces.input]
traces = [otelcol.exporter.otlphttp.grafana_cloud_traces.input]
}
}

otelcol.exporter.otlp "grafana_cloud_traces" {
otelcol.exporter.otlphttp "grafana_cloud_traces" {
client {
endpoint = "tempo-us-central1.grafana.net:443"
endpoint = "https://tempo-us-central1.grafana.net:443"
auth = otelcol.auth.basic.grafana_cloud_traces.handler
}
}
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -316,7 +324,7 @@ ts=2023-05-09T09:37:15.303522Z level=info trace_id=6466516c9e1a556422df7a84c0ade
ts=2023-05-09T09:37:15.303557Z level=info trace_id=6466516c9e1a556422df7a84c0ade6b0 msg="finished node evaluation" node_id=otelcol.exporter.prometheus.grafana_cloud_metrics duration=30.083µs
ts=2023-05-09T09:37:15.303611Z component=prometheus.remote_write.grafana_cloud_metrics subcomponent=rw level=info remote_name=7f623a url=https://prometheus-us-central1.grafana.net/api/prom/push msg="Replaying WAL" queue=7f623a
ts=2023-05-09T09:37:15.303618Z level=info trace_id=6466516c9e1a556422df7a84c0ade6b0 msg="finished node evaluation" node_id=otelcol.auth.basic.grafana_cloud_traces duration=52.5µs
ts=2023-05-09T09:37:15.303694Z level=info trace_id=6466516c9e1a556422df7a84c0ade6b0 msg="finished node evaluation" node_id=otelcol.exporter.otlp.grafana_cloud_traces duration=70.375µs
ts=2023-05-09T09:37:15.303694Z level=info trace_id=6466516c9e1a556422df7a84c0ade6b0 msg="finished node evaluation" node_id=otelcol.exporter.otlphttp.grafana_cloud_traces duration=70.375µs
ts=2023-05-09T09:37:15.303782Z component=otelcol.processor.memory_limiter.default level=info msg="Memory limiter configured" limit_mib=150 spike_limit_mib=30 check_interval=1s
ts=2023-05-09T09:37:15.303802Z level=info trace_id=6466516c9e1a556422df7a84c0ade6b0 msg="finished node evaluation" node_id=otelcol.processor.memory_limiter.default duration=100.334µs
ts=2023-05-09T09:37:15.303853Z level=info trace_id=6466516c9e1a556422df7a84c0ade6b0 msg="finished node evaluation" node_id=otelcol.processor.batch.default duration=44.75µs
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -345,7 +353,9 @@ You can check the pipeline graphically by visiting <http://localhost:12345/graph
[otelcol.auth.basic]: ../../reference/components/otelcol/otelcol.auth.basic/
[otelcol.exporter.loki]: ../../reference/components/otelcol/otelcol.exporter.loki/
[otelcol.exporter.otlp]: ../../reference/components/otelcol/otelcol.exporter.otlp/
[otelcol.exporter.otlphttp]: ../../reference/components/otelcol/otelcol.exporter.otlphttp/
[otelcol.exporter.prometheus]: ../../reference/components/otelcol/otelcol.exporter.prometheus/
[otelcol.processor.batch]: ../../reference/components/otelcol/otelcol.processor.batch/
[otelcol.processor.memory_limiter]: ../../reference/components/otelcol/otelcol.processor.memory_limiter/
[otelcol.receiver.otlp]: ../../reference/components/otelcol/otelcol.receiver.otlp/
[prometheus.remote_write]: ../../reference/components/prometheus/prometheus.remote_write/
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