Getting Started with CsvPath + OpenTelemetry

Observability for the masses

CsvPath in Grafana

DataOps success demands a good understanding of what is happening on multiple levels moment-to-moment. You can't agile what you don't observe.

OpenTelemetry is the standard way to collect indicators from systems into an observability platform. Its OTLP protocol is supported by more than 80 observability venders and open source platforms, including Grafana, Splunk, Elastic, and more. And now CsvPath, too.

Getting started with CsvPath + OpenTelemetry is drop-dead easy. Easier even than the other CsvPaths integrations, which are all pretty lightweight themselves. Here's what you do:

1. Update to the latest point release

2. Open config/config.ini and add otlp to the [listeners] groups list

3. Set your OTLP platform environment variables

If your config/config.ini isn't generated new so it doesn't already have the OTLP class imports you see in the screenshot above, just paste these in:

[listeners]
otlp.result = from csvpath.managers.integrations.otlp.otlp_result_listener import OpenTelemetryResultListener
otlp.results = from csvpath.managers.integrations.otlp.otlp_results_listener import OpenTelemetryResultsListener

The env vars values are vender specific. Here's a screenshot of my Grafana Cloud setup. Yours will be similar, but different values. Check your vender's docs.

OTPL env vars. Don't use these, though! Your observability tool vender will provide your values for your own use

Once you've done those three things you're done. Run some named-paths groups and see your metrics flowing into your observability tool. Simple!

There's more than just a couple of pretty graphs going on here. We'll talk about how adding observability to CsvPath is much more than the sum of its parts. It can change your DataOps mode of operations entirely.

Give OpenTelemetry a try and let us know what you'd like to see. There's much more we can do on OTLP.