> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.e6data.com/query-engine/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.e6data.com/query-engine/guides/operations/monitoring/observability-export.md).

# Observability export

Export e6data telemetry to your own observability stack via OpenTelemetry - metrics, logs, and traces.

e6data exposes its operational telemetry via **OpenTelemetry** so you can route metrics, logs, and traces into your own observability platform (Datadog, Honeycomb, Grafana, New Relic, and so on).

## What's exposed

| Signal      | What's emitted                                                                  |
| ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Metrics** | Cluster utilization, query rate, query latency, executor health, cache hit rate |
| **Logs**    | Query lifecycle events, cluster lifecycle events, errors                        |
| **Traces**  | Distributed traces for queries (parser → planner → executors)                   |

All three follow the OpenTelemetry standard, so any OTLP-compatible backend can ingest them.

## Configure OTel export

In the Compute Plane, go to **Settings → Observability**:

1. Enable **Export to OpenTelemetry**.
2. Set the **OTLP endpoint** for your backend (HTTPS, typically port 443 or 4318).
3. Set the **Authorization header** if your backend requires one (for example, `Bearer <token>`).
4. Select which signals to export (Metrics, Logs, Traces).
5. (Optional) Set a **sampling rate** for traces (default 100%; reduce for high-volume workloads).
6. Save.

Telemetry flows to your backend immediately - no restart required.

## Common backends

| Backend                    | OTLP endpoint format                                  |
| -------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- |
| Datadog                    | `https://otlp.datadoghq.com/v1/...` (region-specific) |
| Honeycomb                  | `https://api.honeycomb.io/v1/...`                     |
| Grafana Cloud              | `https://otlp-gateway-<cluster>.grafana.net/otlp`     |
| New Relic                  | `https://otlp.nr-data.net`                            |
| Self-hosted OTel Collector | Your collector's endpoint                             |

Check your backend's documentation for the exact endpoint URL and auth header format.

## What to dashboard

| Dashboard         | Key metrics                                            |
| ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| Cluster health    | Executor count, CPU/memory, queue depth                |
| Query performance | P50/P95/P99 query latency, slow query count            |
| Workload patterns | Queries per minute, concurrent queries, cache hit rate |
| Errors            | Failed query rate, error type breakdown, timeout rate  |

## Trace sampling

100% trace sampling on a busy workspace can be expensive (bandwidth, ingestion cost). Typical settings:

| Workload                      | Sampling rate |
| ----------------------------- | ------------- |
| Dev/test                      | 100%          |
| Production with moderate load | 10–20%        |
| High-volume production        | 1–5%          |

You can also use **error-based sampling** - capture 100% of failed queries but a fraction of successful ones - configured in the OTel sampling settings or via your collector.

## Privacy and compliance

Telemetry contains query metadata (timing, status, user identity) but not query text by default. To include query text in traces, enable **Include query text in spans** in the observability settings - this may expose sensitive SQL to your backend, so review compliance implications first. Query results are never exported.

## See also

* [Monitoring](/query-engine/guides/operations/monitoring.md) - in-product cluster and query monitoring.
* [Query history and saved queries](/query-engine/guides/querying/query-history-and-saved-queries.md)


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