Hello all!
Welcome to the November C++ meetup!
This time Darshan Gad will talk about OpenTelemtry for embedded applications.
EQ2 Technology will host us this time. We will be located on the 5th floor.
ABSTRACT
Evaluation of Observability using OpenTelemetry on an Embedded C++ Project.
OpenTelemetry is now the standard for observability (traces, metrics and logs) in cloud-native systems. It is a CNCF project, and its C++ SDK is stable for all instruments. On embedded devices, however, printf, syslog, journalctl and DLT (for automotive) remain the norm. This session evaluates whether OpenTelemetry is a practical choice for embedded Linux targets.
The evaluation is based on a live setup that shows how the sequence of actions from an internal/external source can be traced into an embedded target providing a complete chain-of-events view along with metrics and logging.
In this presentation, the external action is a simple User Interface button developed in Go. The button press travels over the network via grpc/protobuf to a C++ application on a Raspberry Pi, which switches a GPIO-connected LED. The full path appears as one trace. Grafana is used as the front end, with Tempo as the backend for traces, Loki for logs and Mimir for metrics. All the required data from the system is collected by an OpenTelemetry Collector running off-target, in this case on a computer.
We’ll assess the C++ integration effort and how the relatively large initial investment can pay off, how trace context carries across applications and language boundaries, and measure the device overhead: CPU, memory and network usage with OpenTelemetry enabled versus disabled. We’ll also look at the limits: which targets can run the SDK and which cannot.
The goal is to introduce OpenTelemetry usage on embedded systems and highlight the benefits.
The required code for the session is found in https://github.com/DGAD7/otel_learning/tree/mai
AGEND
18:00 - Doors open, with fika/snacks/food and minglin
18:30 - Event starts, welcome from our hos
18:45 - Presentation start
19:50 - Wrap-up and closin
20:00 - Event finishe
We look forward to seeing you all at the event
