27 lines
1.1 KiB
Markdown
27 lines
1.1 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Signals
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description: Learn about the categories of telemetry supported by OpenTelemetry
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aliases:
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- /docs/concepts/data-sources
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- /docs/concepts/otel-concepts
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weight: 11
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---
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The purpose of OpenTelemetry is to collect, process, and export **[signals][]**.
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Signals are system outputs that describe the underlying activity of the
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operating system and applications running on a platform. A signal can be
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something you want to measure at a specific point in time, like temperature or
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memory usage, or an event that goes through the components of your distributed
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system that you'd like to trace. You can group different signals together to
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observe the inner workings of the same piece of technology under different
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angles.
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OpenTelemetry currently supports [traces](/docs/concepts/signals/traces),
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[metrics](/docs/concepts/signals/metrics), [logs](/docs/concepts/signals/logs)
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and [baggage](/docs/concepts/signals/baggage). _Events_ are a specific type of
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log, and
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[_profiles_ are being worked on](https://github.com/open-telemetry/oteps/blob/main/text/profiles/0212-profiling-vision.md)
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by the Profiling Working Group.
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[signals]: /docs/specs/otel/glossary/#signals
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