Ignore tracing health checks

[mrewak]

I'd like to ignore sending traces for health check paths or even all actuator paths. My spring boot app with java instrumentation and deployed as ECS service generates many X-Ray traces unnecessary (at least for me).
We are using aws-observability/aws-otel-collector deployed as a central gateway as a ECS service.

Provide config option for the agent to ignore some of the paths or other solution to the issue:

• ignore health paths in aws-otel-collector (?)
• ignore health paths on the X-Ray side (?)

I've found open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java-instrumentation#1060 and probably it can be the solution but it is fixed/implemented in the latest opentelemetry java agent but not in aws-otel-java-instrumentation

[mxiamxia]

You can setup X-Ray remote sampling by following the instruction below, and then create a rule to filter out the traces you don't want to send to X-Ray

1. Steps to setup remote sampling
   • https://aws-otel.github.io/docs/getting-started/remote-sampling
2. Steps to setup X-Ray sampling rules to filter traces. In general, create a rule with URL path: <health_check_path> and set both Reservoir and Rate to 0
   • https://docs.aws.amazon.com/xray/latest/devguide/xray-console-sampling.html#xray-console-sampling-examples

[mrewak]

Thanks, yes, I was considering this but as a last resort as this won't stop sending unnecessary traces from the instrumented service.