Status: Stable
This document defines the transformation between OpenTelemetry and Jaeger Spans. The generic transformation rules specified here also apply. If a particular generic transformation rule and the rule in this document contradict then the rule in this document MUST be used.
Jaeger accepts spans in the following formats:
- OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP), defined in opentelemetry-proto
- Thrift
Batch
, defined in jaeger-idl/.../jaeger.thrift, accepted via UDP or HTTP - Protobuf
Batch
, defined in jaeger-idl/.../model.proto, accepted via gRPC
See also:
- Jaeger APIs
- Reference implementation of this translation in the OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib repository
The following table summarizes the major transformations between OpenTelemetry and Jaeger.
OpenTelemetry | Jaeger Thrift | Jaeger Proto | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Span.TraceId | Span.traceIdLow/High | Span.trace_id | See IDs |
Span.ParentId | Span.parentSpanId | as SpanReference | See Parent ID |
Span.SpanId | Span.spanId | Span.span_id | |
Span.TraceState | TBD | TBD | |
Span.Name | Span.operationName | Span.operation_name | |
Span.Kind | Span.tags["span.kind"] | same | See SpanKind for values mapping |
Span.StartTime | Span.startTime | Span.start_time | See Unit of time |
Span.EndTime | Span.duration | same | Calculated as EndTime - StartTime. See also Unit of time |
Span.Attributes | Span.tags | same | See Attributes for data types for the mapping. |
Span.DroppedAttributesCount | Add to Span.tags | same | See Dropped Attributes Count for tag name to use. |
Span.Events | Span.logs | same | See Events for the mapping format. |
Span.DroppedEventsCount | Add to Span.tags | same | See Dropped Events Count for tag name to use. |
Span.Links | Span.references | same | See Links |
Span.DroppedLinksCount | Add to Span.tags | same | See Dropped Links Count for tag name to use. |
Span.Status | Add to Span.tags | same | See Status for tag names to use. |
This section discusses the details of the transformations between OpenTelemetry and Jaeger.
OpenTelemetry resources MUST be mapped to Jaeger's Span.Process
tags. Multiple resources can exist for a
single process and exporters need to handle this case accordingly.
Critically, Jaeger backend depends on Span.Process.ServiceName
to identify the service
that produced the spans. That field MUST be populated from the service.name
attribute
of the service
resource.
If no service.name
is contained in a Span's Resource, that field MUST be populated from the
default Resource
.
Trace and span IDs in Jaeger are random sequences of bytes. However, Thrift model
represents IDs using i64
type, or in case of a 128-bit wide Trace ID as two i64
fields traceIdLow
and traceIdHigh
. The bytes MUST be converted to/from unsigned
ints using Big Endian byte order, e.g. [0x10, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00] == 268435456
.
The unsigned ints MUST be converted to i64
by re-interpreting the existing
64bit value as signed i64
. For example (in Go):
var (
id []byte = []byte{0xFF, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00}
unsigned uint64 = binary.BigEndian.Uint64(id)
signed int64 = int64(unsigned)
)
fmt.Println("unsigned:", unsigned)
fmt.Println(" signed:", signed)
// Output:
// unsigned: 18374686479671623680
// signed: -72057594037927936
Jaeger Thrift format allows capturing parent ID in a top-level Span field.
Jaeger Proto format does not support parent ID field; instead the parent
MUST be recorded as a SpanReference
of type CHILD_OF
, e.g.:
SpanReference(
ref_type=opentracing.CHILD_OF,
trace_id=span.context.trace_id,
span_id=parent_id,
)
This span reference MUST be the first in the list of references.
OpenTelemetry SpanKind
field MUST be encoded as span.kind
tag in Jaeger span,
except for SpanKind.INTERNAL
, which SHOULD NOT be translated to a tag.
OpenTelemetry | Jaeger |
---|---|
SpanKind.CLIENT |
"client" |
SpanKind.SERVER |
"server" |
SpanKind.CONSUMER |
"consumer" |
SpanKind.PRODUCER |
"producer" |
SpanKind.INTERNAL |
do not add span.kind tag |
In Jaeger Thrift format the timestamps and durations MUST be represented in microseconds (since epoch for timestamps). If the original value in OpenTelemetry is expressed in nanoseconds, it MUST be rounded or truncated to microseconds.
In Jaeger Proto format the timestamps and durations MUST be represented
with nanosecond precision using google.protobuf.Timestamp
and
google.protobuf.Duration
types.
The Status is recorded as Span tags. See Status for tag names to use.
When Span Status
is set to ERROR
, an error
span tag MUST be added with the
Boolean value of true
. The added error
tag MAY override any previous value.
OpenTelemetry Span Attribute
(s) MUST be reported as tags
to Jaeger.
Primitive types MUST be represented by the corresponding types of Jaeger tags.
Array values MUST be serialized to string like a JSON list as mentioned in semantic conventions.
OpenTelemetry Link
(s) MUST be converted to SpanReference
(s) in Jaeger,
using FOLLOWS_FROM
reference type. The Link's attributes cannot be represented
in Jaeger explicitly. The exporter MAY additionally convert Link
(s) to span Log
(s):
- use Span start time as the timestamp of the Log
- set Log tag
event=link
- set Log tags
trace_id
andspan_id
from the respectiveSpanContext
's fields - store
Link
's attributes as Log tags
Span references generated from Link
(s) MUST be added after the span reference
generated from Parent ID, if any.
Events MUST be converted to Jaeger Logs. OpenTelemetry Event's time_unix_nano
and attributes
fields map directly to Jaeger Log's timestamp
and fields
fields. Jaeger Log has no direct equivalent for OpenTelemetry Event's name
field but OpenTracing semantic conventions specify some special attribute names here. OpenTelemetry Event's name
field should be added to Jaeger Log's fields
map as follows:
OpenTelemetry Event Field | Jaeger Attribute |
---|---|
name |
event |
- If OpenTelemetry Event contains an attributes with the key
event
, it should take precedence over Event'sname
field.