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OpenTelemetry Demo and Datadog

Tracetest is a testing tool based on OpenTelemetry that allows you to test your distributed application. It allows you to use data from distributed traces generated by OpenTelemetry to validate and assert if your application has the desired behavior defined by your test definitions.

Datadog is an observability solution for cloud-scale applications, providing solutions to monitor databases, servers, tools and services. It provides integrated distributed tracing, logs and metrics solutions and supports OpenTelemetry standards.

OpenTelemetry Demo v1.3.0 with Datadog, OpenTelemetry and Tracetest​

This is a simple sample app on how to configure the OpenTelemetry Demo v1.3.0 to use Tracetest for enhancing your E2E and integration tests with trace-based testing and Datadog as a trace data store.

Prerequisites​

Tracetest Account:

Docker: Have Docker and Docker Compose installed on your machine.

Run This Quckstart Example​

The example below is provided as part of the Tracetest project. You can download and run the example by following these steps:

Clone the Tracetest project and go to the example folder:

git clone https://github.com/kubeshop/tracetest
cd tracetest/examples/tracetest-datadog

Follow these instructions to run the quick start:

  1. Copy the .env.template file to .env.
  2. Fill out the TRACETEST_TOKEN and ENVIRONMENT_ID details by editing your .env file.
  3. Fill out the DATADOG_API_KEY details by editing your .env file.
  4. Run docker compose run tracetest-run.
  5. Follow the links in the output to view the test results.

Follow the sections below for a detailed breakdown of what the example you just ran did and how it works.

Project Structure​

The project is built with Docker Compose. It contains two distinct docker-compose.yaml files.

1. OpenTelemetry Demo​

The docker-compose.yaml file and .env file in the root directory are for the OpenTelemetry Demo.

Docker Compose Network​

All services in the docker-compose.yaml are on the same network, defined by the networks section on each file, and will be reachable by hostname from within other services. E.g. tracetest-agent:4317 in the collector.config.yaml will map to the tracetest-agent service, where port 4317 is the port where Tracetest Agent accepts traces.

OpenTelemetry Demo​

The OpenDelemetry Demo is a sample microservice-based app with the purpose to demo how to correctly set up OpenTelemetry distributed tracing.

Read more about the OpenTelemetry Demo here.

The docker-compose.yaml contains 14 services.

To start the OpenTelemetry Demo by itself, run this command:

docker compose up

This will start the OpenTelemetry Demo. Open up http://localhost:8084 to make sure it's working. But, you're not sending the traces anywhere.

Let's fix this by configuring Tracetest and the OpenTelemetry Collector to forward trace data to both Datadog and Tracetest.

Sending Traces to Tracetest and Datadog

The collector.config.yaml explains that. It receives traces via either grpc or http. Then, exports them to Tracetest's Agent OTLP endpoint tracetest-agent:4317 in one pipeline, and to Datadog in another.

Make sure to add your Datadog API Key to the datadog exporter.

receivers:
otlp:
protocols:
http:
grpc:
# The hostmetrics receiver is required to get correct infrastructure metrics in Datadog.
hostmetrics:
collection_interval: 10s
scrapers:
paging:
metrics:
system.paging.utilization:
enabled: true
cpu:
metrics:
system.cpu.utilization:
enabled: true
disk:
filesystem:
metrics:
system.filesystem.utilization:
enabled: true
load:
memory:
network:
processes:
# The prometheus receiver scrapes metrics needed for the OpenTelemetry Collector Dashboard.
prometheus:
config:
scrape_configs:
- job_name: 'otelcol'
scrape_interval: 10s
static_configs:
- targets: ['0.0.0.0:8888']

processors:
batch: # this configuration is needed to guarantee that the data is sent correctly to Datadog
send_batch_max_size: 100
send_batch_size: 10
timeout: 10s

exporters:
# OTLP for Tracetest
otlp/tracetest:
endpoint: tracetest-agent:4317
tls:
insecure: true
# Datadog exporter
# One example on how to set up a collector configuration for Datadog can be seen here:
# https://docs.datadoghq.com/opentelemetry/otel_collector_datadog_exporter/?tab=onahost
datadog:
api:
site: datadoghq.com
key: ${env:DATADOG_API_KEY} # Add here you API key for Datadog

service:
pipelines:
traces/tracetest:
receivers: [otlp]
processors: [batch]
exporters: [otlp/tracetest]
traces/datadog:
receivers: [otlp]
processors: [batch]
exporters: [datadog]
metrics:
receivers: [hostmetrics, otlp]
processors: [batch]
exporters: [datadog]

Running the Tests​

The Test File​

Check out the resources/test.yaml file.

# resources/test.yaml
type: Test
spec:
id: JBYAfKJ4R
name: OpenTelemetry Shop - List Products
description: List Products available on OTel shop
trigger:
type: http
httpRequest:
url: http://frontend:8084/api/products
method: GET
headers:
- key: Content-Type
value: application/json
specs:
- selector: span[tracetest.span.type="general" name="Tracetest trigger"]
assertions:
- attr:tracetest.response.status = 200
- attr:tracetest.span.duration < 10ms
- selector: span[tracetest.span.type="rpc" name="grpc.hipstershop.ProductCatalogService/ListProducts"]
assertions:
- attr:rpc.grpc.status_code = 0
- selector: span[tracetest.span.type="rpc" name="hipstershop.ProductCatalogService/ListProducts"
rpc.system="grpc" rpc.method="ListProducts" rpc.service="hipstershop.ProductCatalogService"]
assertions:
- attr:rpc.grpc.status_code = 0

To run the test, run this command in the terminal:

docker compose run tracetest-run

This test will fail just like the sample above due to the attr:tracetest.span.duration < 50ms assertion.

✘ Otel - List Products (http://localhost:11633/test/YJmFC7hVg/run/9/test)
✘ span[tracetest.span.type="http" name="API HTTP GET" http.target="/api/products" http.method="GET"]
✘ #cb68ccf586956db7
✔ attr:http.status_code = 200 (200)
✘ attr:tracetest.span.duration < 50ms (72ms) (http://localhost:11633/test/YJmFC7hVg/run/9/test?selectedAssertion=0&selectedSpan=cb68ccf586956db7)
✔ span[tracetest.span.type="rpc" name="grpc.hipstershop.ProductCatalogService/ListProducts"]
✔ #634f965d1b34c1fd
✔ attr:rpc.grpc.status_code = 0 (0)
✔ span[tracetest.span.type="rpc" name="hipstershop.ProductCatalogService/ListProducts" rpc.system="grpc" rpc.method="ListProducts" rpc.service="hipstershop.ProductCatalogService"]
✔ #33a58e95448d8b22
✔ attr:rpc.grpc.status_code = 0 (0)

View Trace Spans Over Time in Datadog​

To access a historical overview of all the trace spans the OpenTelemetry Demo generates, jump over to your Datadog account on APM > Traces area.

You can also drill down into a particular trace as well.

With Datadog and Tracetest, you get the best of both worlds. You can run trace-based tests and automate running E2E and integration tests against real trace data. And, use Datadog to get a historical overview of all traces your distributed application generates.

Learn more​

Feel free to check out our examples in GitHub and join our Slack Community for more info!