Edge & IoT Observability: Extending OpenTelemetry to the Sensor Layer
Why Edge Visibility Matters
As edge and IoT devices proliferate, observability must stretch beyond the cloud to the device layer.
Key Challenges
- Resource constraints (CPU, battery)
- Network latency and intermittent connectivity
- Data volume and cost
Best Practices
- Use lightweight OTEL agents with on-device sampling
- Pre-aggregate locally
- Export batch telemetry during stable connectivity
Architecture Overview
OTEL Collector local + data lake or centralized backend + Grafana dashboards.
Conclusion
Edge observability is essential for full-stack distributed visibility.