Datadog Agents to OTel Gateway

Although I began using true observability data through APM with New Relic, it wasn't until around 2017 that I started heavily relying on the Datadog Agent for more in-depth system analysis. The agent is a robust, and very popular, way to collect system / component telemetry, logs, and traces (along with other forms of APM like database query stats and profiling). It also has strong metadata linking capabilities from cloud providers. The OTel collector is quickly catching up in terms of data collection capabilities and may even surpass it in processing power. Can we combine them?

The power of Open Source

We're experiencing a kind of software "enlightenment" era with various Open Source movements like OTel, Apache Iceberg, Deepseek, and more. For us at Omlet, we believe that the “telemetry highway” will be OTel. The “on” and “off” ramps could be diverse, but the “highway”: OTel

We want the Datadog Agent to transmit data smoothly, and we are excited to introduce the "Datadog-to-OTel" Service as a container that you can host yourself.

• Container: psharma1989/datadog-to-otel

• Associated Docs: https://omlet-1.gitbook.io/omlet-docs/datadog-agent-s-to-otel#omlet-datadog-to-otel-service

  • We use the Omlet Gateway as an example within the docs

This opens up various use cases that benefit from dual-shipping or proxying alongside your main Datadog platform usage.

Use Cases

High-compliance scenarios

Sensitive observability data requires teams to buffer or store data on-premises or in-VPC. Redaction or filtration rules can be applied after the fact.

“Edge” Alerting and AIOPs

OTel is quickly becoming the universal standard for Observability understanding. The Datadog Agent outputs a wealth of structured telemetry that can be augmented with AI Agents at the “Edge”. These agents could output back to the Datadog platform for alerting / orchestration

Observability Pipelining and Observability Data Lake

You might want full data resolution with a specific retention period. You may also want to control the amount of noisy data that impacts MTTR and significantly increases costs. Long-term data analysis over weeks, months, or quarters can be done on complete observability data stored in object storage. Key observability data signals can be enhanced to reduce noise in the Datadog platform.

What next?

We’d love to hear from the community about what else you'd like to see. Visit us at https://www.omlet.co/ or email us at info@omlet.co to share your thoughts!