OpenTelemetry has accelerated the commoditization of instrumentation. Telemetry generation is becoming a solved problem, an implementation detail. But this has created a new challenge: a wealth of standardized signals with no standard meaning. Different systems instrumented with different semantics generating telemetry in their own unique language. And while signal correlation connects specific workloads, it fails when we need to understand our systems at a macro scale by joining disparate datasets. That is, until we all agreed to speak the same language.
Just as English as a lingua franca fueled progress across the internet, OpenTelemetry Semantic Conventions are providing a shared language for our systems. In this talk we’ll discuss why semantic interoperability is the real connective tissue, how it’s fueling deeper insights into our production environments, and the key role it plays in enabling the AI systems that are rapidly ushering in the next revolution of our industry.
