Summary

Create a comprehensive example demonstrating OpenTelemetry (OTel) distributed tracing across the entire stack, including Strimzi Kafka and Apicurio Registry. This example should showcase end-to-end request tracing from producer to consumer with schema validation through the registry.

Motivation

With the new OpenTelemetry implementation in Apicurio Registry, users need a reference example showing how to:

• Configure OTel tracing in a realistic distributed environment
• Trace requests across Kafka producers/consumers using Strimzi
• Correlate traces between Kafka messaging and Registry schema operations
• Visualize the complete request flow in a tracing backend (e.g., Jaeger)

Proposed Example Components

Infrastructure

• Strimzi Kafka Operator - Kafka cluster on Kubernetes
• Apicurio Registry - With KafkaSQL or SQL storage, OTel enabled
• Jaeger (or similar) - Tracing backend for visualization
• OpenTelemetry Collector - For trace collection and export

Application Components

• Producer Application - Java/Quarkus app that:

  • Registers schemas with Apicurio Registry
  • Produces Avro/Protobuf messages to Kafka
  • Propagates trace context through Kafka headers

• Consumer Application - Java/Quarkus app that:

  • Retrieves schemas from Apicurio Registry
  • Consumes and deserializes messages
  • Continues the distributed trace

Tracing Scenarios to Demonstrate

1. Schema registration → Message production → Message consumption
2. Schema lookup/caching during serialization/deserialization
3. Error scenarios (schema validation failures, compatibility checks)
4. Registry API calls correlated with Kafka operations

Deliverables

• Docker Compose setup for local development
• Kubernetes manifests for Strimzi + Registry + Jaeger deployment
• Sample producer application with OTel instrumentation
• Sample consumer application with OTel instrumentation
• README with setup instructions and architecture diagram
• Documentation explaining trace propagation patterns

Technical Considerations

• Use Apicurio Registry Kafka Serdes with OTel context propagation
• Configure appropriate sampling strategies for production-like scenarios
• Include both automatic and manual instrumentation examples
• Show trace baggage usage for cross-cutting concerns

Related

• New OTel implementation in Apicurio Registry
• Strimzi Kafka Operator documentation
• Apicurio Registry Serdes libraries

Labels

kind/feature, area/examples, area/observability