> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://arize-ax.mintlify.dev/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# OpenTelemetry Collector
> An optional intermediate service that receives spans, processes them, and exports them to a backend — with deployment models, use cases, and the most common configuration pitfalls.
The **[OpenTelemetry Collector](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/collector/)** is a service that receives telemetry, processes it, and exports it to one or more backends. It's optional — most applications send spans directly from the SDK to Arize AX — but it unlocks centralized policy, multi-backend fan-out, dynamic routing, and tail sampling that the SDK can't express.
For practical Collector configuration including authentication and dynamic project routing, see [Advanced Patterns: OTEL Collector](/ax/instrument/advanced-patterns#otel-collector). This page covers the concept.
# Anatomy of a Collector
Collectors are composed of **pipelines**. Each pipeline chains three component types:
| Component | Role |
| :------------ | :-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Receiver** | Listens for incoming telemetry (OTLP over gRPC, OTLP over HTTP, Jaeger, Zipkin, ...). |
| **Processor** | Transforms, filters, enriches, batches, or samples spans as they flow through. |
| **Exporter** | Sends the processed telemetry out — to Arize AX, to another backend, to multiple backends, to disk. |
All components and pipelines are defined in a single `config.yaml`. The Collector's flexibility comes from how those components are composed.
For the canonical specification, see [OpenTelemetry Collector documentation](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/collector/).
# Deployment Models
Three common ways to deploy a Collector:
| Model | How it works | Best for |
| :---------- | :-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | :----------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Agent** | Collector runs alongside the application — as a sidecar container, a daemonset, or a local process. | Simple setups, clear 1:1 mapping between app and collector. |
| **Gateway** | A central collector receives from many applications. | Centralized policy, credential management, single point of egress. |
| **Hybrid** | Agent collectors forward to a centralized gateway. | Large environments — distributed collection plus centralized processing. |
```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart LR
subgraph Agent["Agent — one collector per app"]
direction LR
A1[App] --> AC[Collector] --> AX[Arize AX]
end
```
```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart LR
subgraph Gateway["Gateway — one collector, many apps"]
direction LR
G1[App 1] --> GC[Collector]
G2[App 2] --> GC
G3[App 3] --> GC
GC --> AX[Arize AX]
end
```
```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart LR
subgraph Hybrid["Hybrid — agents feeding a gateway"]
direction LR
H1[App 1] --> HA1[Agent
collector] --> HG[Gateway
collector]
H2[App 2] --> HA2[Agent
collector] --> HG
H3[App 3] --> HA3[Agent
collector] --> HG
HG --> AX[Arize AX]
end
```
# Common Use Cases
Reasons to put a Collector between your applications and Arize AX:
| Use case | What the Collector does |
| :------------------------------------------ | :-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Filtering** | Drop spans by name, attribute, or pattern using a `filter` processor — useful for cutting noise from health checks or known-uninteresting paths. |
| **PII redaction or attribute modification** | Use a `transform` processor to scrub sensitive fields, hash user IDs, or replace values before export. |
| **Fan-out to multiple backends** | Send the same spans to Arize AX and a long-term storage system, or to Arize AX and a metrics backend, without duplicating instrumentation in the app. |
| **Dynamic project routing** | Route traces to different Arize AX projects or spaces based on span attributes — see the [dynamic routing example](/ax/instrument/advanced-patterns#dynamic-trace-routing). |
| **Tail sampling** | Buffer complete traces and decide which to keep based on outcome (error spans, slow requests, specific attributes). |
| **Credential centralization** | Application code stays free of Arize AX API keys; the Collector handles authentication at a single chokepoint. |
| **Tail-end batching** | Reduce the number of network round-trips from your fleet to Arize AX by batching across applications at the Collector. |
# Common Pitfalls
A few Collector failure modes to know about:
* **Forgetting Arize AX authentication** — the Collector needs to add `arize-space-id` and `arize-api-key` (or `space_id`/`api_key`) headers to outbound requests. Use the `headers_setter` extension or set them in the exporter configuration. Without them, the Arize AX collector rejects spans.
* **Modifying shared span objects across pipelines** — when one pipeline mutates a span, every other pipeline that processes the same span sees the modification. Use a `routing` connector to duplicate spans cleanly before fan-out.
* **No batch processor at the end of the pipeline** — for production volumes, the last processor in a pipeline should be a `batch` processor. Without it, the Collector exports one span at a time, which is inefficient.
* **Wrong Collector endpoint** — applications need to point at the Collector's OTLP endpoint (gRPC: `:4317`, HTTP: `:4318`), not at Arize AX directly. Mixing the two is a common source of "why are some spans missing?" debugging.
* **Receiver missing `include_metadata: true`** — when a centralized gateway uses inbound request metadata for routing (e.g., reading the target Arize AX space from a header), the receiver has to be told to make that metadata available. Without it, the routing extension has nothing to read.
# Where the Collector Fits
Both with and without a Collector, your application code looks the same — the [Exporter](/ax/concepts/otel-openinference/exporter) points at an OTLP endpoint. The difference is just which OTLP endpoint:
```
Without Collector:
App → Exporter → otlp.arize.com
With Collector:
App → Exporter → Collector → (processors) → Arize AX (and/or other backends)
```
Start without a Collector. Add one when you need centralized policy, multi-backend fan-out, tail sampling, or routing logic the SDK can't express.
***
## You've completed the OpenTelemetry and OpenInference reference
Every concept in this section — signals, the four OTel components, the Arize AX helpers, OpenInference conventions, span kinds, instrumentation approaches, context, sampling, and the Collector — is now in your toolbox.
Time to instrument: