Use OneAgent with OpenTelemetry data

• Latest Dynatrace
• How-to guide
• 3-min read
• Published Sep 30, 2025

There are two ways to use OneAgent with OpenTelemetry:

Send OpenTelemetry traces to OneAgent's OTLP endpoint

Dynatrace OneAgent offers a local-only OTLP endpoint for traces. This is shown in the figure above, where the application uses the local-only OTLP endpoint.

To send traces to OneAgent, you first need to enable the Extension Execution Controller. You can do this globally for the whole environment, for host groups, or only for specific hosts.

With the EEC enabled, the OneAgent installations on the respective hosts will start accepting OTLP traces on URL http://localhost:14499/otlp/v1/traces.

OneAgent uses the TCP port 14499 as default port for this endpoint. You can change the port with oneagentctl.

Export details

Calls to these API endpoints need to adhere to the following protocol details:

Authentication

Because it's a local-only endpoint, OneAgent does not require authentication.

Network requirements

Detect OpenTelemetry spans using the OneAgent code module's OpenTelemetry Span Sensor

The OneAgent code module includes an OpenTelemetry Span Sensor which can create new spans based on OpenTelemetry API calls. This is shown in the figure above, where the code module (with the OpenTelemetry Span Sensor) sends data via the OpenTelemetry protocol.

Use this approach

OpenTelemetry span data can be captured for Java, Go, Node.js, PHP, and .NET, on all platforms supported by OneAgent. For setup and configuration of the OneAgent Span Sensor, see Enable the OpenTelemetry Span Sensor for OneAgent.

When the OneAgent OpenTelemetry Span Sensor is enabled, API calls like this example are automatically detected and included in the trace waterfall view. Since OneAgent captures these spans automatically, exporting them to an OTLP endpoint will create duplicate traces.

The following example shows what OneAgent would detect and stitch into the OneAgent trace without the complexity of manual propagation.

GET /calculate-price/ABC123  # OneAgent
├── SELECT FROM products     # OneAgent
├── calculate-discount       # OpenTelemetry
│   ├── seasonal-rules       # OpenTelemetry
│   └── loyalty-calculation  # OpenTelemetry
└── INSERT INTO prices       # OneAgent

These auto-instrumented spans are woven together with your manual OpenTelemetry spans into a single trace.

@RestController
public class PricingController {
    private static final Tracer tracer = GlobalOpenTelemetry.getTracer("pricing-service");
    @GetMapping("/calculate-price/{productId}")
    public PriceResponse calculatePrice(@PathVariable String productId) {
        Product product = productRepository.findById(productId);

        Span calcSpan = tracer.spanBuilder("calculate-discount")
            .setAttribute("product.category", product.getCategory())
            .startSpan();

        double discount;
        try (Scope scope = calcSpan.makeCurrent()) {
            discount = applySeasonalRules(product);
            discount += applyCustomerLoyalty(product);
        } finally {
            calcSpan.end();
        }

        return priceRepository.save(new PriceResponse(product, discount));
    }

    private double applySeasonalRules(Product product) {
        Span span = tracer.spanBuilder("seasonal-rules")
            .setAttribute("season", "winter-sale")
            .startSpan();

        try (Scope scope = span.makeCurrent()) {
            return calculateSeasonalDiscount();
        } finally {
            span.end();
        }
    }

    private double applyCustomerLoyalty(Product product) {
        Span span = tracer.spanBuilder("loyalty-calculation").startSpan();

        try (Scope scope = span.makeCurrent()) {
            return calculateLoyaltyDiscount();
        } finally {
            span.end();
        }
    }
}