OpenObservability Talks Unveiling OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation - OpenObservability Talks S6E05
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Oct 26, 2025 Mario Macías, a Principal Software Engineer at Grafana Labs with a Ph.D. in Computer Architecture, dives into the fascinating world of eBPF and its applications in observability. He discusses the OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation (OBI), highlighting its no-code, multi-language capabilities that enhance app monitoring. Mario reveals how OBI captures essential metrics and supports complex protocols, and how it can be seamlessly deployed in production. He also touches on collaboration within the community and the future roadmap for OBI.
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No-Code Application Instrumentation
- OBI provides no-code instrumentation by loading eBPF probes to capture request rate, errors, and duration without changing application code.
- It runs user-space agent plus small kernel programs, giving rich telemetry with minimal runtime overhead.
Kernel Power With Safety Guards
- eBPF runs verified programs inside the kernel, requiring privileges but preventing unsafe code from crashing the system.
- The verifier rejects unsafe programs so eBPF preserves kernel stability while enabling powerful probes.
Use OBI For Low-Overhead Telemetry
- Use OBI when you want instant, language-agnostic telemetry without redeploying applications.
- Prefer eBPF instrumentation to reduce overhead in interpreted languages like Ruby or Python.
