5 Reasons to Choose OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib

Previously in our blog, you learned why Sentry Software chose OpenTelemetry for Hardware Sentry. With Hardware Sentry version 3.0.00, Sentry Software chose to include all the OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib components. In this article, Nassim Boutekedjiret, Software Architect at Sentry Software, explains the 5 reasons why.

Reason 1: Support for a multitude of platforms and architectures

The OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib distributions are available for many platforms (Windows, Linux and MacOS) and architectures (x86_64 and arm64). By adopting OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib components, Sentry Software has been able to provide REHL, Debian, and Windows packages (rpm, deb, and msi) to install Hardware Sentry.

Reason 2: Support for a variety of observability back-ends

Many vendors, including Datadog, Splunk, Dynatrace, etc., regularly contribute to the otelcol-contrib project by creating receivers, exporters, and components. By natively including all the available components in its distribution, Hardware Sentry allows its users to expose the collected data to the observability back-end of their choice. These components are maintained by the vendors themselves.

Reason 3: Benefit from a large supporting community

More than 195 developers and 45 companies, including Sentry Software, Datadog, Dynatrace, Splunk, etc. contribute to the CNCF OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib project. The community is diverse and strong. Sentry Software strongly believes in OpenTelemetry.

Reason 4: High-quality components

OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib follows the same stability levels defined by the OpenTelemetry Collector project to ensure only high-quality components are included in the contribution repository. The exact stability status of each component is provided in its README.md file for greater transparency. It is either Development, Alpha, Beta, Stable, Deprecated, or Unmaintained.

Reason 5: A la carte Features

The OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib project includes the feature gate mechanism, allowing users to enable or disable certain features while running the collector. The feature can be enabled through the command line using the --feature-gates flag: otelcol-contrib --config=otel-config.yaml --feature-gates=gate1,-gate2,+gate3

Thanks to OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib, Hardware Sentry's users can now:

• Install Hardware Sentry on the platform of their choice through intelligent wizards
• Expose the collected data in the observability back-end of their choice
• Benefit from the innovation driven by large businesses and a committed community
• Fully trust the components provided
• Enable or disable features when running the collector.

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