Amazon CloudWatch introduces support for OpenTelemetry metrics in public preview

Amazon CloudWatch has announced that it now supports native OpenTelemetry (OTel) metrics in a public preview phase. This new integration allows users to send metrics directly through the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) without the need for custom conversion logic or additional tools. This development enables the seamless combination of custom OpenTelemetry metrics with AWS-provided metrics from more than 70 services, and these can be queried using PromQL, eliminating the need for extra agents or code modifications.

The introduction of native OTel support means that teams operating microservices on Amazon EKS and on-premises servers can now transmit OTel metrics from both environments directly to CloudWatch. This capability allows them to correlate application-level metrics, such as order processing latency from on-premises services, with EKS pod CPU utilization and Application Load Balancer request counts. Users can then employ PromQL to create unified dashboards and set alarms that encompass their entire infrastructure.

CloudWatch’s anomaly detection feature is compatible with OTel metrics, facilitating the automatic identification of unusual patterns without requiring the setting of static thresholds. Additionally, Query Studio, a new console interface for PromQL, offers users the ability to write queries, explore metrics, create alarms, and build dashboards directly within the CloudWatch console.

This native support for OpenTelemetry metrics is available in public preview in several regions, including US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Singapore), and Europe (Ireland). During the preview period, there is no charge for using OpenTelemetry metrics or for querying. For further information, individuals are encouraged to consult the Amazon CloudWatch OpenTelemetry documentation.