Enable OpenTelemetry codeless monitoring for ACK applications - Application Real-Time Monitoring Service

OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation (OBI) runs as a DaemonSet on ACK cluster nodes and automatically collects traces and metrics without code changes. The Integration Center in CloudMonitor CMS 2.0 provides a streamlined setup for enabling OBI monitoring on ACK applications.

Background

OBI is a Kubernetes auto-instrumentation component based on eBPF. Deployed as a DaemonSet on cluster nodes, it intercepts application network calls at the kernel level to collect metrics and traces without code changes or sidecar injection. The collected data is reported to CloudMonitor CMS 2.0 through the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP).

OBI automatically discovers the following protocols and frameworks:

Category	Protocols and frameworks
Network protocols	HTTP, gRPC, SQL (MySQL/PostgreSQL), Redis, Kafka
GenAI frameworks	OpenAI, Anthropic, Tongyi Qianwen, MCP, Embedding, Rerank

Choose an integration method

Two methods are available for enabling OBI monitoring on ACK cluster applications:

Aspect	Integration Center (this topic)	Manual Helm installation
Use case	Ideal for ACK clusters requiring a quick, zero-configuration setup.	Ideal for general-purpose Kubernetes clusters, including non-Alibaba Cloud environments, that require custom configurations.
Method	A simple, three-step process performed in the console.	Requires using the command line and editing a configuration file.
Kubernetes version requirement	Recommended: 1.32.0 or later	1.24 or later

To use the manual Helm installation method, see Enable observability for general-purpose Kubernetes environments by using OpenTelemetry OBI.

Prerequisites

Your applications are deployed in an ACK cluster.

Note

Kubernetes version 1.32.0 or later is recommended. If your cluster version is earlier than 1.32.0, Integration Center may fail to correctly identify the cluster.

Step 1: Integrate applications

Use the Integration Center in CloudMonitor CMS 2.0 to select the target ACK cluster and applications, and then enable OBI monitoring.

Log on to the CloudMonitor CMS 2.0 console and select the target workspace.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Integration Center.
Under the Application Monitoring & Tracing category, find and click the OpenTelemetry Codeless Monitoring card.

An integration panel appears on the right side of the page, showing the integration steps.
In the Select acs.ack.cluster step, select the target region and ACK cluster.
In the Integration Configurations step, select the applications to monitor and enter an application name. You can select multiple applications at once.
Click OK. After the configuration is complete, check the integration result in the Check Integration Status step.

Step 2: View monitoring data

OBI scans the target application processes and begins collecting data. Monitoring data becomes available on the Application Monitoring page after approximately 2 to 3 minutes.

Note

To monitor applications that use the gRPC protocol, you must restart the corresponding application Pods to complete the gRPC monitoring integration.

Log on to the CloudMonitor CMS 2.0 console and select the target workspace.
In the left-side navigation pane, select Application Monitoring to view the list of integrated applications.
Click the name of a target application to view the following monitoring data:
- Application Topology: Shows call relationships between the application and its upstream and downstream services.
- Traces: View the complete trace of a single request, including the duration and status of each span.
- Error transactions: View details of failed requests.
- Slow transactions: View requests whose response times exceed the threshold.
- SQL Analysis: View performance metrics for database calls.

Uninstall OBI monitoring

To uninstall OBI monitoring, delete the monitoring configuration:

Log on to the CloudMonitor CMS 2.0 console and select the target workspace.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Integration Center > Integrations.
On the Integrations page, find the integration that corresponds to the target cluster, and then click Delete.

After deletion, monitoring data typically stops updating within 2 to 3 minutes.

Release notes

Version	Release date	Changes	Impact
0.9.5	June 24, 2026	Added observability for AI Agent components, such as LLM, Embedding, MCP, Rerank, Retrieval, and Tool. Changed path convergence to a threshold-based method. Fixed an issue with trace correlation across multiple applications.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
0.9.4	June 10, 2026	Added support for integrating applications without restarting the OBI component.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
0.9.3	June 3, 2026	Added a profiling collector component.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
0.9.2	May 27, 2026	Added support for integrating applications by using the Integration Center in CloudMonitor CMS 2.0.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
0.9.1	May 22, 2026	Initial release.	None.