The Future of Observability with OpenTelemetry

Appendix B. OpenTelemetry Project Roadmap

Roadmaps go out-of-date quickly. For the most up-to-date roadmap, please see the OpenTelemetry status page. That said, here’s the state of OpenTelemetry as of this writing.

Core Components

Currently, the OpenTelemetry Tracing Signal is declared stable, and stable implementations are available in many languages.

The Metrics Signal has just been declared stable, and beta implementations will be widely available in Q1 of 2022.

The Logging Signal is expected to be declared stable in Q1 of 2022, with beta implementations expected to be widely available in Q2 of 2022. In 2021, the Stanza project was donated to OpenTelemetry, adding highly efficient log-processing capabilities to the OpenTelemetry Collector.

The Semantic Conventions for HTTP/RPC, databases, and messaging systems are expected to be declared stable in Q1 of 2022.

The Future

Finishing the above roadmap completes the stability requirements for OpenTelemetry’s core functionality. This is a huge milestone, as it opens the door to further adoption of OpenTelemetry, including native integration with databases, managed services, and OSS libraries.

Much of this integration work is already underway in the form of prototypes and beta support. With the stability of OpenTelemetry complete in the first half of 2022, I expect that there will be a surge in declarations of OpenTelemetry support in the second half of 2022, making 2022 the “year of OpenTelemetry.”

But we’re not stopping ...