How to Evaluate Observability Agent Performance - Understanding Overhead

Explore the intricacies of evaluating observability agent performance in this informative conference talk by Braydon Kains from Google Cloud. Delve into the complexities of assessing the impact of observability agents like OpenTelemetry Collector, Fluent Bit, and Vector on your infrastructure. Gain insights into the various types of work these agents perform, including ingestion, processing, and exporting data. Understand the concept of overhead and its components, such as reading from files, scraping system information, and network calls. Learn about crucial performance variables, including batching, buffering, resource limiting, and backpressure. By the end of this 24-minute presentation, acquire the knowledge needed to effectively evaluate an observability agent's overhead and performance, empowering you to make informed decisions for your workload.