A presentation at Cloud Native Bergen in in Bergen, Norway by Kasper Borg Nissen
The Paved Path to Observability Kasper Borg Nissen, Principal Developer Advocate at @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
Who? Kasper Borg Nissen Principal Developer Advocate at Dash0 KubeCon+CloudNativeCon EU/NA 24/25 Co-Chair (former) CNCF Ambassador Golden Kubestronaut CNCG Aarhus, KCD Denmark Organizer Co-founder & Community Lead Cloud Native Nordics
https://university.platformengineering.org/observability-for-platform-engineering
Observability should feel invisible, but never be absent @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
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Why Platform Engineering? @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
A digital platform is a foundation of self-service APIs, tools, services, knowledge and support arranged as a compelling internal product. - Evan Bottcher @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
Platform Engineering Principles Self-Service Experience Explicit and Consistent APIs Golden Paths Modularity Platform as a Product Core Requirements @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
How does this apply to Observability? @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
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This fragmentation, leads to @phennex kaspernissen.xyz Image by pngtree.com
This fragmentation, leads to Complex Query Languages @phennex kaspernissen.xyz Image by pngtree.com
This fragmentation, leads to Complex Query Languages @phennex kaspernissen.xyz Vendor lock-in Image by pngtree.com
This fragmentation, leads to Complex Query Languages @phennex kaspernissen.xyz Vendor lock-in Metadata Inconsistency Image by pngtree.com
This fragmentation, leads to Complex Query Languages Vendor lock-in Metadata Inconsistency No instrumentation due to high complexity @phennex kaspernissen.xyz Image by pngtree.com
This fragmentation, leads to Complex Query Languages Vendor lock-in No instrumentation due to high complexity @phennex kaspernissen.xyz Metadata Inconsistency Lack of unified insights Image by pngtree.com
As a Platform Engineer, you have a dual role 01 02 Observing the platform Enable developers (cloud, cluster, CI/CD, shared DBs, etc) @phennex kaspernissen.xyz (auto-instrumentation, logs, metrics, traces)
01 Observe the platform @phennex kaspernissen.xyz Image by pngtree.com
The foundation @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
OpenTelemetry OpenTelemetry OTel is an open source project designed to provide standardized tools and APIs for generating, collecting, and exporting telemetry data such as traces, metrics, and logs The de-facto standard for distributed tracing, also supports metrics and logs (soon profiling and RUM The main goals of the project are: ● ● ● Unified telemetry Vendor-neutrality Cross-platform @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
1/1/20241/1/2025 Commits: 27.168 PRs+Issues: 58.508 Source: CNCF Velocity Commits: 44.486 PRs+Issues: 56.299
Signals METRICS 42 LOGS 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 @phennex kaspernissen.xyz TRACES PROFILES RUM
Not pillars … Metrics @phennex kaspernissen.xyz Logs Traces
Not pillars … We donʼt have a metrics problem, or a tracing problem. We have systems problems. Metrics @phennex kaspernissen.xyz Logs Traces
Correlation is the superpower METRICS 42 LOGS 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 20/JUN/2025 “GET / HTTP/1.1ˮ 200 @phennex kaspernissen.xyz TRACES PROFILES RUM
02 Enable developers @phennex kaspernissen.xyz Image by pngtree.com
No-touch instrumentation on Kubernetes Instrumentation Instructs how to inject auto-instrumentation Injects instrumentation in to the pod OpenTelemetry Operator @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-go: “<ns>/<instrumentation>” instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-java: “<ns>/<instrumentation>” instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-dotnet: “<ns>/<instrumentation>” instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-nodejs: “<ns>/<instrumentation>” instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-python: “<ns>/<instrumentation>” @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
OpenTelemetry: the standard plumbing Instrumentation OTel API & SDK Telemetry Backends The OpenTelemetry Collector auto-instrumentation Time-series database … Log database Receive Process Analysis Tools Export Trace database Infrastructure … Kubernetes … Generate and Emit @phennex transmit kaspernissen.xyz Collect, Convert, Process, Route, Export transmit Store & Analyze
OpenTelemetry: the standard plumbing OTel API & SDK auto-instrumentation Vendor space Collection of Telemetry is The OpenTelemetry Collector standardized … Receive Process Export Infrastructure Kubernetes … “The last observability agent you will ever installˮ … and many more. Generate and Emit @phennex transmit kaspernissen.xyz Collect, Convert, Process, Route, Export transmit Store & Analyze
Observability as code An open specification for dashboards. CNCF Sandbox project @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
Putting it all together… @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
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Putting it all together… @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
Golden defaults for developers @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
Observability is evolving - fast. @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
OpenTelemetry is standardizing telemetry collection. @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
Applying Platform Engineering principles can transform observability into a seamless, scalable, and developer-friendly experience. @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
Treat Observability as a platform product @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
Thank you! Get in touch! Kasper Borg Nissen, Principal Developer Advocate at Demo can be found here! https://github.com/dash0hq/otel-platform-demo @phennex kaspernissen.xyz
Observability should feel invisible - but never be absent. Yet for many teams, it’s a constant source of friction: developers reinvent telemetry pipelines, traces break across services, and platform engineers scramble to maintain consistency.
This talk introduces a better approach: platform-led observability. By embracing open standards like OpenTelemetry and treating observability as a built-in feature, platform engineers can reduce complexity while empowering developers.
We’ll explore the dual observability role platform engineers now play - ensuring insight into infrastructure health and giving developers the tools they need to understand their services. With auto-instrumentation, semantic conventions, and self-service tooling, observability can become a paved path, not a pain point.
for free. You
can too.