Getting familiar with Jaeger and OpenTelemetry

I’ve been exploring Jaeger, the open-source distributed tracing platform, as part of getting more involved with open-source engineering.

I set up Jaeger locally, ran the HotROD demo application, and started exploring how traces move through the system.

One thing that became much clearer was the relationship between OpenTelemetry and Jaeger. OpenTelemetry handles the instrumentation and collection side, while Jaeger helps you store, query, and visualize traces.

I also spent some time looking through Jaeger’s codebase and exploring opportunities to contribute.

I’m still getting familiar with the project, but it’s been a useful introduction to observability and how distributed applications are monitored.