Kubernetes deployment

We provide a OpenTelemetry Demo Helm chart to help deploy the demo to an existing Kubernetes cluster.

Helm must be installed to use the charts. Please refer to Helm’s documentation to get started.

Prerequisites

• Pre-existing Kubernetes Cluster
• Helm 3.0+
• 4 GB of RAM for the application

Install the Chart

Add OpenTelemetry Helm repository:

helm repo add open-telemetry https://open-telemetry.github.io/opentelemetry-helm-charts

To install the chart with the release name my-otel-demo, run the following command:

helm install my-otel-demo open-telemetry/opentelemetry-demo

Note The OpenTelemetry Demo Helm chart version 0.11.0 or greater is required to perform all usage methods mentioned below.

Use the Demo

The demo application will need the services exposed outside of the Kubernetes cluster in order to use them. You can expose the services to your local system using the kubectl port-forward command or by configuring service types (ie: LoadBalancer) with optionally deployed ingress resources.

Expose services using kubectl port-forward

To expose the frontendproxy service use the following command (replace my-otel-demo with your Helm chart release name accordingly):

kubectl port-forward svc/my-otel-demo-frontendproxy 8080:8080

In order for spans from the browser to be properly collected, you will also need to expose the OpenTelemetry Collector’s OTLP/HTTP port (replace my-otel-demo with your Helm chart release name accordingly):

kubectl port-forward svc/my-otel-demo-otelcol 4318:4318

Note: kubectl port-forward will proxy the port until the process terminates. You may need to create separate terminal sessions for each use of kubectl port-forward, and use Ctrl-C to terminate the process when done.

With the frontendproxy and Collector port-forward set up, you can access:

• Webstore: http://localhost:8080/
• Grafana: http://localhost:8080/grafana/
• Feature Flags UI: http://localhost:8080/feature/
• Load Generator UI: http://localhost:8080/loadgen/
• Jaeger UI: http://localhost:8080/jaeger/ui/

Expose services using service type configurations

Note Kubernetes clusters may not have the proper infrastructure components to enable LoadBalancer service types or ingress resources. Verify your cluster has the proper support before using these configuration options.

Each demo service (ie: frontendproxy) offers a way to have its Kubernetes service type configured. By default these will be ClusterIP but you can change each one using the serviceType property for each service.

To configure the frontendproxy service to use a LoadBalancer service type you would specify the following in your values file:

components:
  frontendProxy:
    service:
      type: LoadBalancer

Note It is recommended to use a values file when installing the Helm chart in order to specify additional configuration options.

The Helm chart does not provide facilities to create ingress resources. If required these would need to be created manually after installing the Helm chart. Some Kubernetes providers require specific service types in order to be used by ingress resources (ie: EKS ALB ingress, requires a NodePort service type).

In order for spans from the browser to be properly collected, you will also need to expose the OpenTelemetry Collector’s OTLP/HTTP port to be accessible to user web browsers. The location where the OpenTelemetry Collector is exposed must also be passed into the frontend service using the PUBLIC_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT environment variable. You can do this using the following in your values file:

components:
  frontend:
    env:
      - name: PUBLIC_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT
        value: http://otel-demo-collector.mydomain.com:4318/v1/traces

To install the Helm chart with a custom my-values-file.yaml values file use:

helm install my-otel-demo open-telemetry/opentelemetry-demo --values my-values-file.yaml

With the frontendproxy and Collector exposed, you can access the demo UI at the base path for the frontendproxy. Other demo components can be accessed at the following sub-paths:

• Webstore: / (base)
• Grafana: /grafana
• Feature Flags UI: /feature
• Load Generator UI: /loadgen/ (must include trailing slash)
• Jaeger UI: /jaeger/ui

Bring your own backend

Likely you want to use the Webstore as a demo application for an observability backend you already have (e.g. an existing instance of Jaeger, Zipkin, or one of the vendor of your choice.

The OpenTelemetry Collector’s configuration is exposed in the Helm chart. Any additions you do will be merged into the default configuration. You can use this to add your own exporters, and add them to the desired pipeline(s)

opentelemetry-collector:
  config:
    exporters:
      otlphttp/example:
        endpoint: <your-endpoint-url>

    service:
      pipelines:
        traces:
          receivers: [otlp]
          processors: [batch]
          exporters: [otlphttp/example]

Note When merging YAML values with Helm, objects are merged and arrays are replaced.

Vendor backends might require you to add additional parameters for authentication, please check their documentation. Some backends require different exporters, you may find them and their documentation available at opentelemetry-collector-contrib/exporter.

To install the Helm chart with a custom my-values-file.yaml values file use:

helm install my-otel-demo open-telemetry/opentelemetry-demo --values my-values-file.yaml