OpenTelemetry (OTel), an open source project under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), is a collection of tools, APIs and SDKs for generating and collecting observability data (mainly trace, metrics and logs) from cloud-native applications. An industry-standard for distributed tracing and observability, OTel enables analyzing application health and performance to ensure production-readiness and support production monitoring.

One analogy of a microservice architecture that I personally like is the idea of a large office setting with disparate departments communicating through an internal mail system. I imagine manilla envelopes being passed around, carried on carts through hallways, up elevators—passing the information one department needs to the next department.

Microservices are loosely coupled services that are organized around business capabilities. In an ideal microservices architecture, each service can be developed and deployed independently. To form a functional application, these separate services communicate with each other in the production environment (and even beforehand).