​
Overview

OpenTelemetry (OTel) is an open-source, vendor-neutral standard for generating, collecting, and exporting telemetry data. Backed by the CNCF, it’s the industry norm for instrumenting distributed systems. It unifies three core signal types:
  • Traces – End-to-end workflows across services
  • Logs – Structured, timestamped events
  • Metrics – Numeric signals representing system health
To learn more, visit opentelemetry.io.

​
Why PlayerZero Supports OTel

PlayerZero integrates with OTel to correlate backend telemetry with real user sessions in the frontend. By supporting the native OTLP format, we enable you to:
  • Use existing OTel exporters or collectors
  • Ingest logs, traces, and metrics in real time
  • Enrich these signals with user identity and session context
  • Connect issues to the commit, release, or function that caused them
You choose how to instrument your code; PlayerZero adds user and code insights to each signal.

​
What You Can Send

Anything in the OTel (OTLP) format:
  • Traces (Spans) – Distributed workflows across services
  • Logs – Structured log data
  • Metrics – Health or performance indicators
PlayerZero automatically merges these signals into issues, timelines, and regression analysis.

​
Logs, Traces, and Metrics in PlayerZero

While traditional observability platforms excel at dashboards and alerts, PlayerZero focuses on end-to-end issue resolution. We bridge your backend data with user sessions and code commits to surface what truly impacts customers.

​
Our Approach

We correlate telemetry with:
  • User session timelines
  • Frontend events and actions
  • Commit and release data
  • Known or repeating issues
This unified view helps identify root causes without toggling between multiple tools.

​
Frontend-to-Backend Trace Linking

The PlayerZero Web SDK attaches a traceparent header to user actions. This:
  • Links frontend events to backend spans
  • Shows end-to-end timelines spanning UI and system layers
  • Maps traces to specific users, pages, and releases

​
Trace Support

  • Accept all OTLP-compliant spans
  • Detect root spans, measure latency, track multi-service requests
  • Highlight repeat issues and performance spikes
Traces appear inside PlayerZero’s issue view and tie directly to user sessions.

​
Log Support

  • Ingest structured OTLP logs
  • Associate them automatically to traces via trace_id or user/session context
  • Group recurring log entries to identify patterns or regressions
Logs give deeper context alongside traces and user actions in one place.

​
Metric Support

  • Accept OTLP metrics (e.g., CPU usage, error rate, latency)
  • Surface spikes and anomalies that align with real user impact
  • No standalone dashboard: metrics are used to enrich issue timelines and triage

​
Example Workflow

  1. User Action: A user clicks a button in the browser (Web SDK adds traceparent).
  2. Backend Spans/Logs: The server emits spans and logs via OTel.
  3. Automatic Correlation: PlayerZero merges frontend + backend data in real time.
If the request fails, PlayerZero can:
  • Flag a new or regressed issue
  • Show the full session + logs + traces
  • Reveal code commits causing the error

​
What’s Next?