Zero-Code APM with OBI and eBPF

Add full distributed tracing to apps with zero code changes using OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation, streaming telemetry to Splunk Observability Cloud.

In this workshop, you’ll experience the power of OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation (OBI) – a zero-code approach to application performance monitoring that instruments your services directly from the Linux kernel.

You’ll progress through three phases, each building on the last:

• Phase 0 – Python Warm-up: Run a bare Python app on the host. Use the OBI binary to add APM tracing from the kernel – no SDK, no code changes.
• Phase 1 – Docker (Before OBI): Deploy three polyglot microservices (Node.js + Go + Go) with Docker Compose. Confirm APM is empty.
• Phase 2 – Docker (The Magic): Add one OBI container. Full distributed traces appear in Splunk APM across all three services. Zero code changes.
• Phase 3 – Kubernetes: Deploy the same services to K8s with the Splunk OTel Collector Helm chart. Enable OBI with one flag. Same zero-code tracing, enterprise-grade orchestration.

Phase 0:  Python (:5150) ──── instrumented by OBI binary on host

Phase 1:  Frontend (Node.js :3000) → Order-Processor (Go :8080) → Payment-Service (Go :8081)
          ↑ infrastructure metrics only, APM is empty

Phase 2:  Same three services + one OBI container
          ↑ full distributed traces, zero code changes

Phase 3:  Same services on Kubernetes + Splunk OTel Collector Helm chart + obi.enabled=true
          ↑ same tracing, scales to any cluster