VictoriaMetrics at KubeCon: Optimizing Tail Sampling in OpenTelemetry with Retroactive Sampling
Summary
VictoriaMetrics presents retroactive sampling for OpenTelemetry, reducing data transfer and resource usage by buffering raw spans on edge agents and sending only essential attributes to the central collector for decisionmaking. The approach leverages an on-disk FIFO queue, achieving substantial reductions in outbound traffic, CPU, and memory compared with traditional tail sampling, and discusses variants, benchmarks, and potential open-source contributions.