instrumentation

instrumentation

noun

A method that enables software applications to collect telemetry that represents how their code works. You can use instrumentation to send telemetry to an observability solution, such as Splunk Observability Cloud.

There are two main ways of instrumenting software applications:

• Automatic, or binary, instrumentation attaches itself to an application without the need of writing code. It automatically instruments applications using an agent.
• Manual, or source, instrumentation requires importing telemetry libraries or modules to the code of an application, and making changes to the source code.

Splunk Observability Cloud supports both automatic and manual instrumentation using the Splunk distribution of OpenTelemetry SDKs.

Related terms

• Agent

For more information

• Instrument back-end applications to send spans to Splunk APM
• Instrument mobile and web applications for Splunk RUM
• Instrument serverless functions for Splunk Observability Cloud