OpenTelemetry
Configure OpenTelemetry SDKs or collectors to send OTLP/HTTP protobuf data to Altertable. Logs and traces are written into the built-in opentelemetry catalog for the target environment.
Goal
Authenticate an OpenTelemetry exporter, send logs or traces to Altertable, and verify the accepted telemetry with SQL.
Prerequisites
- Enable OpenTelemetry for the target environment.
- Copy the environment's lakehouse username and password from Credentials.
- Configure an OpenTelemetry SDK or collector that supports OTLP over HTTP with protobuf encoding.
Altertable accepts logs and traces. Metrics are not supported yet.
Steps
1. Configure authentication
Create the HTTP Basic Auth header described in OpenTelemetry authentication. Use the same credentials as the Lakehouse HTTP API.
2. Choose a signal
- Send logs to
POST https://api.altertable.ai/v1/logs. - Send traces to
POST https://api.altertable.ai/v1/traces.
3. Export telemetry
Configure your SDK or collector with the selected endpoint, Content-Type: application/x-protobuf, and the Basic Auth header. Start the instrumented application or collector to send a batch.
Verification
Query the table for the signal you sent:
SELECT * FROM opentelemetry.main.logs LIMIT 10;SELECT * FROM opentelemetry.main.spans LIMIT 10;
Run only the relevant statement if you configured one signal. Confirm that the returned service and telemetry fields match the application or collector that sent the batch.
Troubleshooting
- The exporter receives an authentication error: rebuild the Basic Auth header with credentials from the same environment as the OpenTelemetry catalog.
- No rows appear: confirm that the exporter uses OTLP/HTTP protobuf, the correct signal endpoint, and
Content-Type: application/x-protobuf. - Metrics fail to export: send logs or traces instead; Altertable does not support OpenTelemetry metrics yet.
- Telemetry is in the wrong environment: update the exporter credentials to those of the intended environment.