# OpenTelemetry

Term type: Standard

A standard and ecosystem for collecting and exporting logs, traces, and metrics from instrumented applications.

Also known as: OTEL, OTel

Telemetry is the data an application emits about its behavior. OpenTelemetry is a standard and ecosystem for collecting and exporting that data, not another name for telemetry itself.

OpenTelemetry provides APIs, SDKs, instrumentation, and protocols for observability:

- **Logs** record events and their context.
- **Traces** follow work across operations and service calls.
- **Metrics** measure behavior such as request rates, latency, and resource usage.

Aspire's dashboard can receive OpenTelemetry data. Participating .NET applications can configure it through service defaults; applications in other runtimes use their own OpenTelemetry libraries.

Instrumentation and exporters must be configured. Adding a service to an AppHost alone does not instrument all of its code.

## Practical example

Instrument your API and export its telemetry to the Aspire dashboard to connect request traces with structured logs and performance metrics.

## Learn more

- [Collect telemetry from your application](https://aspire.dev/fundamentals/telemetry/)

## Related terms

- [Aspire dashboard](https://aspire.dev/hub/glossary/aspire-dashboard/)

- [Distributed application](https://aspire.dev/hub/glossary/distributed-application/)

- [OpenTelemetry Protocol](https://aspire.dev/hub/glossary/otlp/)

- [Service defaults](https://aspire.dev/hub/glossary/service-defaults/)