Build an Observability Platform with SigNoz

SigNoz combines distributed tracing, metrics, and logs around OpenTelemetry data. The useful outcome is not merely a running UI, but telemetry that consistently identifies services, environments, versions, traces, and failures.

For a Java application, the OpenTelemetry Java agent can provide automatic instrumentation:

java -javaagent:/opt/opentelemetry-javaagent.jar \
  -Dotel.service.name=order-service \
  -Dotel.resource.attributes=deployment.environment=prod \
  -Dotel.exporter.otlp.endpoint=http://collector:4317 \
  -jar app.jar

Propagate trace context across HTTP and messaging boundaries. Include trace_id and span_id in structured application logs so operators can move from a log event to the related trace.

Define service-level indicators for request rate, error rate, latency, saturation, and important business operations. Apply sampling intentionally: head sampling is simple, while collector-side tail sampling can retain errors and slow traces more selectively.

Secure ingestion and the UI, control high-cardinality attributes, monitor collector backpressure, and set retention according to cost and investigation needs.