Docs » Instrument back-end applications to send spans to Splunk APM » Instrument Node.js applications for Splunk Observability Cloud » Splunk OTel JS compatibility and requirements

Splunk OTel JS compatibility and requirements πŸ”—

Meet these requirements to instrument Node.js applications for Splunk Observability Cloud using the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry JS.

Ensure you have supported Node.js and library versions πŸ”—

The Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry JS requires Node.js 14 and higher. To activate AlwaysOn Profiling, you need Node.js 16 or higher.

The Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry JS instruments numerous libraries and packages. For a complete list, see the plugins folder in the OpenTelemetry upstream repository on GitHub. To use any additional instrumentation, install it using npm before running your application.

Note

If you’re using a Node.js version lower than 14, use the SignalFx Tracing Library for Node.js.

Install and configure the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector πŸ”—

The Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry JS exports application traces and spans to the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector, which also collects system metric data and logs, including profiling data.

To send application traces and spans to Observability Cloud, install the Splunk Distribution of OpenTelemetry Collector for your platform. The following distributions are available: