Manage OpenTelemetry Agents and Collectors

Understand how to use OpenTelemetry Fleet Management to centrally control the configuration, deployment, and health of your OTel ecosystem.

OpenTelemetry Fleet Management provides a centralized control plane to view your entire OpenTelemetry (OTel) ecosystem. You can monitor agent inventory, and audit configurations across Linux, Windows, and Kubernetes environments without requiring direct access to the underlying application code.

Understanding OpAMP

The Open Agent Management Protocol (OpAMP) is the communication protocol that facilitates OpenTelemetry Fleet Management. It provides a standardized framework for remotely managing, monitoring, and configuring software agents across distributed systems.

OpAMP enables the following capabilities:

  • Update agent settings and configurations centrally without manual intervention.
  • Real-time tracking of agent status and performance metrics.

Integrated natively with the OpenTelemetry Collector and agents, OpAMP bridges your distributed infrastructure and the Splunk Observability Cloud control plane.

For more information about the OpAMP protocol, see the OpAMP specs.

For information about the OpAMP management plane for agents, see the blueprint.

Available realms

The Fleet Management feature is available in the following realms:

  • us0

  • us1

  • us2

  • us3

  • eu0

  • eu1

  • eu2

  • au0

  • jp0

  • sg0

Supported platforms

This solution supports the following environments:

  • Linux

  • Windows

  • Kubernetes

OpenTelemetry Fleet Management architecture

The OpenTelemetry Fleet Management architecture establishes a secure control plane from your clients (agents or collectors) to the Splunk Observability Cloud. By utilizing the OpenTelemetry Agent Management Protocol (OpAMP), the system ensures that your telemetry pipeline remains consistent, observable, and easily configurable.

Fleet Management architecture

These components are part of the architecture:

Component Description
OpenTelemetry Instrumentation Agents Agents collect the data. They initiates communication by using the OpAMP protocol to receive configuration updates or report their current status.
OpenTelemetry Collector Acts as an intermediary between the agents and the server. It proxies the OpAMP requests and establishes self-reporting.
Fleet Management OpAMP Server The central OpAMP server hosted within the Splunk Observability Cloud. It coordinates the lifecycle, configuration, and operational state of the agent fleet.
Application Programming Interface The endpoint used for management operations and administrative interaction. Endpoint: api.<tenant>.observability.splunkcloud.com/v2/fm-service
Management Path The dedicated channel for OpAMP-specific signaling.

Endpoint: ingest.<tenant>.observability.splunkcloud.com/v1/opamp
Communication Protocol The architecture utilizes the HTTP-based OpAMP (Open Agent Management Protocol) to ensure standardized communication among all components.
Fleet Management UI The user interface to track the status, version, and effective configuration of OpenTelemetry collectors and instrumentation agents.

Get started with OpenTelemetry Fleet Management

To get started, install the latest Splunk OpenTelemetry Collector distribution. You must explicitly enable OpAMP, as it is not enabled by default. See Set up OpenTelemetry Fleet Management.

You can manage the OpenTelemetry Collectors and Agents by using: