The Role of OpenTelemetry in LLM Observability

OpenTelemetry (OTel) is becoming an essential component in monitoring and optimizing the performance of Language Learning Models (LLMs). It provides observability, allowing developers to see what's happening in their LLM applications, understand issues quickly, evaluate outputs, run root cause analysis, and ultimately improve their systems. OTel is comprised of three parts: traces, metrics, and logs. Traces allow tracking and analyzing the path of a request as it moves through different parts of a distributed system. Using an open standard like OTel ensures that consumers can switch easily in the ecosystem without being tightly coupled to something that isn't standardized or vendor-specific. OpenInference is built on the foundations of OTel, with added semantic conventions specific to LLM observability.