---
updatedAt: 2026-09-10T19:36:41.000Z
agentTools:
projectIndex: https://docs.observeinc.com/llms.txt
---
# OpenTelemetry
* Endpoint: `/otel`
* URL: `https://${OBSERVE_CUSTOMER}.collect.observeinc.com/v1/otel`
* Maximum request size (compressed): 10MB
* Maximum request size (uncompressed): 50MB
* Individual metric, span, or event limit (including attributes and resource attributes): 1MB
Observe by Snowflake implements an [OLTP HTTP endpoint](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otlp/) at `/v2/otel` supporting the following observation types:
| Type | URL Suffix \* | Protocol Status |
| ------- | ------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Traces | `v1/traces` | [stable](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-proto/tree/main#maturity-level) |
| Metrics | `v1/metrics` | [stable](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-proto/tree/main#maturity-level) |
| Logs | `v1/logs` | [stable](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-proto/tree/main#maturity-level) |
* Suffix is for documentation purposes, Otel collecting agents will normally append this automatically for each type. So exporter would be configured for instance for customer id 123456: `https://123456.collect.observeinc.com/v2/otel`. The agent will automatically append the appropriate suffix for each observation type, resulting in complete endpoints such as `https://123456.collect.observeinc.com/v2/otel/v1/logs` for logs, `https://123456.collect.observeinc.com/v2/otel/v1/metrics` for metrics, or `https://123456.collect.observeinc.com/v2/otel/v1/traces` for traces.
Encode the request body in the `Protobuf` format and sent with the content-type `application/x-protobuf`. JSON encoding using `application/json` content-type is also supported. See [Binary Protobuf Encoding](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otlp/#binary-protobuf-encoding) in the OTLP specification.
This endpoint does not support GRPC.
# Type-specific representations
Following tables illustrate for each Otel type how data is mapped from Otel Protobuf records into Observe by Snowflake source Dataset entries.
## Common
Common to all types is that we flatten the type-specific Resource and Scope hierarchies, turning any attributes on the resource level (`opentelemetry.proto.resource.v1.Resource`) into a dedicated `resource_attributes` field and `scope` information (`opentelemetry.proto.common.v1.InstrumentationScope`) into `instrumentation_scope`.
In addition to Otel specific fields Observe by Snowflake metadata is stored in a common `meta` column.
| Otel Field | Observe by Snowflake Column / Field | Comments |
| --------------------- | ----------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `resource.attributes` | `resource_attributes` | Otel kv list is represented as OPAL object |
| `scope ` | `instrumentation_scope` | data is flattened |
| | `meta` | Observe by Snowflake specific metadata, such as ingest token |
## Logs
Below describes mapping of all the fields from [`LogRecord`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-proto/blob/v1.5.0/opentelemetry/proto/logs/v1/logs.proto#L136):
| Otel Field | Observe by Snowflake Column / Field | Comments |
| -------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `time_unix_nano` | `timestamp` | |
| `observed_time_unix_nano ` | `timestamp` | if `time_unix_nano` is empty |
| `body` | `body` | Body is always stored as a string. Non-string values will be converted |
| `attributes` | `attributes` | |
| `severity_number` | `fields.severity_number` | |
| `severity_text` | `fields.severity_text` | |
| `trace_id` | `fields.trace_id` | |
| `span_id` | `fields.span_id` | |
| `dropped_attributes_count` | `fields.dropped_attributes_count` | Only stored if > 0 |
| `flags` | `fields.flags` | Only stored if > 0 |
## Metrics
Below describes mapping of the fields from [`Metric`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-proto/blob/v1.5.0/opentelemetry/proto/metrics/v1/metrics.proto#L187) or one of the nested classes, depending of the type of the metric:
| Otel Field | Observe by Snowflake Column / Field | Comments |
| -------------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `time_unix_nano` | `timestamp` | |
| `start_time_unix_nano` | `fields.start_time` | if present |
| `name` | `metric` | |
| `description` | `description` | |
| `unit` | `unit` | |
| `data`,`aggregation_temporality` | `type` | gauge -> gauge, sum + agg\_temp\_delta -> delta, sum + agg\_temp\_cumulative -> cumulativeCounter, histogram -> histogram, exponentialHistogram -> exponential\_histogram, summary -> summary |
| `value`,`quantile_values` | `value` | for gauge, sum and summary (see comments below for summary) |
| `explicit_bounds`,`Buckets[]` | `complex_value` | for histogram and exponential histogram, encapsulates all the bucket information. see below comments for min/max/count/sum handling |
| `attributes` | `attributes` | |
| `aggregation_temporality` | `fields.aggregation_temporality` | Only for histograms, otherwise encoded in type |
| `dropped_attributes_count` | `fields.dropped_attributes_count` | Only stored if > 0 |
| `flags` | `fields.flags` | Only stored if > 0 |
"Histogram" and "Exponential Histogram" metrics are represented into multiple "pseudo" metrics similar to Prometheus, with suffixes `.sum`, `.count`, `.min` and `.max` respectively. The types of `.count` and `.sum` will be corresponding to the aggregation temporality whereas `.min` and `.max` are always `gauge`. For `.count` the nunit will be `null`.
Similarly, "Summary" metrics are flattened into multiple "pseudo" timeseries, with a `quantile` attribute indicating the corresponding quantily. Given this and as they are deprecated we recommend to use histograms instead.
### Warning
Histograms with cummulative aggregation are not currently supported! Data will be stored but quantile calculations will be wrong.
### Caution
Exemplars are not currently supported and will be dropped.
## Traces
Trace data is stored into 3 different datasets: `Span`, `Span Event` and `Span Link`. This is in order to normalize the data into a more relational form and allow easy access of span events as a standalone log dataset.
### Span
Below describes mapping of all the fields from [`Span`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-proto/blob/v1.5.0/opentelemetry/proto/trace/v1/trace.proto#L88) except for `Event` and `Link` types:
| Otel Field | Observe by Snowflake Column / Field | Comments |
| -------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | ----------------------------------- |
| `start_time_unix_nano ` | `start_time`, `duration` | `duration`=`end_time-start_time` |
| `end_time_unix_nano ` | `end_time`, `duration` | `duration`=`end_time-start_time` |
| `trace_id` | `trace_id` | |
| `span_id` | `span_id` | |
| `parent_span_id` | `parent_span_id` | |
| `name` | `span_name` | |
| `kind` | `span_kind` | enum is resolved into string |
| `attributes` | `attributes` | |
| `status` | `field.status` | `code` enum is resolved into string |
| `trace_state` | `fields.trace_state ` | |
| `dropped_attributes_count` | `fields.dropped_attributes_count` | Only stored if > 0 |
| `dropped_events_count` | `fields.dropped_events_count` | Only stored if > 0 |
| `dropped_links_count` | `fields.dropped_links_count` | Only stored if > 0 |
| `flags` | `fields.flags` | Only stored if > 0 |
### Span event
Below describes mapping of all the fields from [`Event`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-proto/blob/v1.5.0/opentelemetry/proto/trace/v1/trace.proto#L222) plus fields inherited from the parent span:
| Otel Field | Observe by Snowflake Column / Field | Comments |
| -------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | -------------------------- |
| `time_unix_nano` | `timestamp` | |
| `Span.trace_id` | `trace_id` | inherited from parent span |
| `Span.span_id` | `span_id` | inherited from parent span |
| `name` | `event_name` | |
| `attributes` | `attributes` | |
| `dropped_attributes_count` | `fields.dropped_attributes_count` | Only stored if > 0 |
### Span link
Below describes mapping of all the fields from [`Link`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-proto/blob/v1.5.0/opentelemetry/proto/trace/v1/trace.proto#L251) plus fields inherited from the parent span:
| Otel Field | Observe by Snowflake Column / Field | Comments |
| ---------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | ---------------------------- |
| `Span.start_time_unix_nano ` | `start_time` | inherited from parent span |
| `Span.end_time_unix_nano ` | `end_time` | inherited from parent span |
| `Span.trace_id` | `trace_id` | inherited from parent span |
| `Span.span_id` | `span_id` | inherited from parent span |
| `trace_id` | `linked_trace_id` | linked trace\_ \_id |
| `span_id` | `linked_span_id` | linked span\_id |
| `attributes` | `attributes` | |
| `trace_state` | `fields.trace_state` | trace\_state of linked trace |
| `dropped_attributes_count` | `fields.dropped_attributes_count` | Only stored if > 0 |
| `flags` | `fields.flags` | Only stored if > 0 |