You switch vendors after instrumenting with OTel. What changes?

Question

Accepted Answer

The exporter configuration — the instrumentation itself stays put — Vendor neutrality is the point of OTel: code is written against its API, so swapping backends means pointing the exporter (or the Collector) somewhere new. Call sites never name a vendor, the SDK is the upstream implementation rather than a per-vendor one, and something still has to be told where to send the data.

Answer

Every call site — the instrumentation names the vendor

Answer

The whole SDK — each vendor ships its own implementation

Answer

Nothing at all — a vendor reads OTLP straight from the application

You switch vendors after instrumenting with OTel. What changes?

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