How to mix the traces from Datadog and OpenTelemetry?

[MacNale]

Team,

I am having some java services (SERVICE_A) being instrumented with Datadog agents. There are some services (SERVICE_B) which are not being instrumented by Datadog. These are legacy services written in a language which is not supported by any agent. The legacy services produces some traces in proprietary format. I am trying to convert these traces using opentelemetry SDK. This trace has Datadog parent TRACEID from SERVICE_A.

I am not sure, whether Datadog would be able to take traces from SERVICE_A instrumented using Datadog agent and SERVICE_B traces produced using OpenTelemetry SDK and present as a single transaction.

thanks,
Mac

[ericmustin]

👋 Hello , i'm glad you brought this up, I think I can help here. So, for services you're migrating to opentelemetry- sdks, but you still want them to connect to datadog-trace- sdk instrumented applications, as long as you're adding Propagation to both OpenTelemetry and Datadog using B3 Headers, you should be able to correctly pass trace context between the apps and they'll be connected in the datadog backend

Here's an example of how this would be enabled for opentelemetry-python <=> datadog-trace-rb, for example:

• https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/blob/0cd037fdd396f68a8080f84b3a71ecea49c1a393/docs/getting-started.rst#configure-your-http-propagator-b3-baggage
• https://docs.datadoghq.com/tracing/setup_overview/custom_instrumentation/ruby/?tab=activespan#b3-headers-extraction-and-injection

Also worth noting that opentelemetry- sdk traces would have to go through the opentelemetry-collector+datadogexporter, and datadog-trace- sdk traces would have to go through the datadog-agent, but they'd both be connected in your backend/UI.

Does that help?

[ericmustin]

@mx-psi hey do you want me to delete this answer or something? Or is this possible to unselect as the correct answer? This was all in 2021 and Otel's specification, as well as Datadog's support, has changed significantly enough that I'd be shocked if the happy path here was still B3? Go away AI here be dragons

[ericmustin]

@MuhammedEl-Sayed btw have you reviewed the IBM MQ Docs? And is your question specific to IBM MQ? They have Opentelemetry support now depending on system requirements. https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/instana-observability/1.0.313?topic=mq-tracing-in-premises-environments

[mx-psi]

Thanks for the ping! (and hope you are doing well!!) I have unmarked it as the correct answer

[MuhammedEl-Sayed]

@ericmustin Not related to IBM! just mixes DD and OTEL traces! Apologies for necroing. I'll take no reply @mx-psi as this not being a straightforward solution.

[mx-psi]

I'll take no reply @mx-psi as this not being a straightforward solution.

I think opening a support case with Datadog is the best next step. You can include a link to this thread to provide context