Add Nomad examples on "Getting Started"

[lgfa29]

Hi team,

I’m a developer at HashiCorp and I’ve been exploring what it would mean to integrate OpenTelemetry into a system like Nomad. As a first step I ported the “Getting Started” demo and sample files so they be deployed as Nomad jobs.

I don’t know if this is the type of contribution that is expected given the work towards the 1.0 GA, so feel free to close it.

Also let me know if there are more meaningful contributions that I can make, and that are also more aligned with the roadmap, around integrating OpenTelemetry with Nomad. I would love to help 🙂

Thank you.

Description:
Port examples and demo to Nomad job files.

Documentation:
Add "Getting Started" instructions for Nomad on how to run the collector as an agent or gateway, and the full demo.

[linux-foundation-easycla]

The committers are authorized under a signed CLA.

• ✅ Luiz Aoqui (1bfaf5b)

[tigrannajaryan]

@lgfa29 thank you for the contribution. I don't have have any experience with Nomad but if the Otel community is interested in it then this is very welcome and we can merge it. If we get upvotes on this PR we can do it. Please feel free to promote it, mention in CNCF OpenTelemetry Collector Slack channels or elsewhere.

Also let me know if there are more meaningful contributions that I can make, and that are also more aligned with the roadmap, around integrating OpenTelemetry with Nomad. I would love to help

We have "help wanted" labeled issues: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3A%22help+wanted%22 see if any of these make sense.

[lgfa29]

Thanks @tigrannajaryan! Will do 😄

[tigrannajaryan]

@open-telemetry/collector-approvers anyone familiar with Nomad and can review this example PR?

[lgfa29]

I know how hard it can be to test something in a new system. If it helps maybe I can record a video explaining how this works, or do a pair review with someone in a call?

Anything I can do to help, just let me know.

[tigrannajaryan]

@lgfa29 Sorry, I am having a hard time finding anyone who can review this. Since we don't have any expertise in Nomad we won't be able to maintain the contribution. Instead of posting the example in this repo and making it the responsibility of maintainers who don't know how to maintain it I suggest that you post the example anywhere else that you control and where you can maintain and keep it up-to-date and here in our Getting Started document we will include only a one-line link to that external document.

[gc-ss]

@tigrannajaryan I understand your concern with lack of expertise in Nomad.

Full disclosure, I am a happy customer. No other relationship with Hashicorp or Luiz.

That out of the way, Nomad is really simple to get to speed and operate.

Is it possible for anyone, on the @open-telemetry/collector-approvers team to spend a bit of time with Luiz please, pairing?

Or - if that's too much of an ambiguous request - @lgfa29 how about you record a video explaining how this works, put it here, and then @open-telemetry/collector-approvers can make a call.

I will let @lgfa29 expand on this more but knowing enough Nomad to support this is less complicated than one would think (I empathize where everyone's coming from given some experience with K8s) plus having this be part of opentelemetry would really be appreciated by Nomad users and make us feel closer to opentelemetry.

[tigrannajaryan]

I don't question the value of having the example, I only question my ability to maintain it :-)

If I merge the contribution I take responsibility to maintain it. I don't feel comfortable doing it since I don't know anything about Nomad. Furthermore, none of the current active contributors or approvers of this repository seems to be familiar with Nomad, which makes it even more difficult to take responsibility for it.

I will keep this PR open for a while in case one of the approvers steps up and agrees to review / take ownership of it. Absent that I believe the best we can do is link to the example that is hosted and maintained elsewhere.

[lgfa29]

Thank you for the update @tigrannajaryan, and for taking the time to look into this. I can definitely empathize with the difficulties of maintaining something that you are familiar with 🙂

I made change as you suggested and I am now hosting the examples at https://github.com/hashicorp/nomad-open-telemetry-getting-started, linking to it from the "Getting Started" page.

Is this a better approach?

[tigrannajaryan]

LGTM, thank you @lgfa29

[lgfa29]

LGTM, thank you @lgfa29

Thank you @tigrannajaryan for shepherding this PR through.

If there's ever anyone interest in Nomad, feel free to ping me in the discussion 😄