Tools / Datadog Interview questions
How does Datadog ingest OpenTelemetry data?
There are two common ingestion paths: sending OTLP (OpenTelemetry Protocol) data directly to the Datadog Agent's built-in OTLP receiver, or routing it through a self-managed OpenTelemetry Collector configured with the Datadog exporter, which then forwards it to Datadog's intake.
Either way, Datadog's backend translates the incoming OpenTelemetry spans, metrics, and logs into its own internal representation, mapping OpenTelemetry semantic conventions (like service.name) onto Datadog's tagging model so the data appears in the same Trace Explorer and service pages as natively instrumented data.
Choosing between the two paths is mostly about where you want the translation and any additional processing to happen: going straight to the Agent's OTLP receiver is simpler for a single-Agent setup, while a Collector-based pipeline gives more flexibility to add processors (like batching or filtering) before data ever reaches Datadog.
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