OpenTelemetry (OTel) is an open-source toolkit that enables engineers to expose telemetry data from application components, providing a unified standard for metrics, logs, and traces. This allows for the collection of telemetry data without the need for expensive proprietary data collectors, and provides a vendor-agnostic solution with comprehensive integrations to collect data from various technologies. The collected data can be processed on-premises or via SaaS providers, offering flexibility in choosing backend processing options. Observability is made possible through the use of OTel, which enables engineers to make telemetry data available, while monitoring involves analyzing this data stream for anomalies and out-of-band values. By using OpenTelemetry, organizations can benefit from improved resource sizing, reduced troubleshooting time, and increased freedom to choose a backend vendor that suits their needs.