OpenTelemetry .NET instrumentation compatibility and requirements

This is what you need to instrument .NET applications for Splunk Observability Cloud.

Meet the following requirements to instrument .NET applications for Splunk Observability Cloud:

Ensure you are using supported .NET versions

The Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry .NET supports the following .NET versions:

  • Instrumentation for traces and metrics:

    • .NET 9.0 (End of Support: May 12, 2026)

    • .NET 8.0 (End of Support: November 10, 2026)

    • .NET Framework 4.7 and higher

    • .NET Framework 4.6.2 (End of Support: January 12, 2027)

  • AlwaysOn Profiling:

    • .NET 9.0 (End of Support: May 12, 2026)

    • .NET 8.0 (End of Support: November 10, 2026)

      Note: .NET Framework is not supported for AlwaysOn Profiling.
CAUTION: The Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry .NET version 1.9.0 is not compatible with .NET 6 or .NET 7 since both have reached End of Life. If you want to continue instrumenting .NET 6 or .NET 7 services use the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry .NET version 1.8.0 or lower. Best effort support for Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry .NET is provided up to November 12, 2025 only for the last versions of .NET 6 (version 6.0.36) and .NET 7 (version 7.0.20).

The distribution supports the following architectures:

  • x86

  • AMD64 (x86-64)

Note: ARM architectures are not supported.

Dependencies

{"name": "Dependency", "source_href": "Link to source", "version": "Version", "stability": "Stability"}

dependencies

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/splunk/o11y-gdi-metadata/main/apm/splunk-otel-dotnet/metadata.yaml

Supported libraries

The Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry .NET instruments the following libraries:

included

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/splunk/o11y-gdi-metadata/main/apm/splunk-otel-dotnet/metadata.yaml

{"keys": "Identifier", "description": "Description", "stability": "Stability", "support": "Support", "instrumented_components": "Components", "signals": "Signals", "source_href": "Source", "settings": "Settings", "dependencies": "Dependencies", "supported_versions": "Supported versions", "name": "Name", "package_href": "Package URL", "version": "Version", "instrument": "Type", "metric_name": "Metric name", "metrics": "Metrics", "env": "Environment variable", "default": "Default", "type": "Type", "category": "Category", "category_notes": "Category notes"}

instrumentations

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/splunk/o11y-gdi-metadata/main/apm/splunk-otel-dotnet/metadata.yaml

Note:
  • Custom metrics may be generated automatically by standard instrumentation. They can also be manually reported by users. These metrics are not part of default sets like host or container metrics. They may result in additional ingest costs.
  • Bundled metrics belong to predefined sets collected automatically through supported instrumentation and integrations. These metrics are usually excluded from extra billing.
For full definitions and billing details for each metric category, see: Metric Categories in Splunk Observability Cloud
CAUTION: The term custom does not always imply user-defined metrics. It refers to metrics outside of default sets and may include those generated automatically by standard instrumentation.

Install and configure the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector

The Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry .NET exports application traces and spans to the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector, which also collects system metric data and logs, including profiling data.

To send application traces and spans to Splunk Observability Cloud, install the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector for your platform. The following distributions are available: