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OTCA — The OpenTelemetry Collector

26% of the OTCA exam. Sample questions below; the full library has 30 questions tagged to this domain.

Sample questions on The OpenTelemetry Collector

The OpenTelemetry Collector

Q1. Which exporter is the right choice for sending logs to Grafana Loki from the Collector?

Reveal answer and explanations
  1. A `prometheusremotewrite`

    Incorrect. `prometheusremotewrite` is for metrics, not logs.

  2. B `loki`

    Correct. The `loki` exporter sends log records to a Grafana Loki endpoint, mapping attributes to Loki labels.

  3. C `otlp/jaeger`

    Incorrect. `otlp/jaeger` is a trace destination, not a log destination.

  4. D `kafka_metrics`

    Incorrect. There is no exporter named `kafka_metrics`; the generic Kafka exporter is `kafka` and could be used for any signal but is not Loki-specific.

The OpenTelemetry Collector

Q2. An OTTL `filter` processor is configured to drop spans where `attributes["http.route"] == "/healthz"`. What is the most accurate description of the effect on the trace?

Reveal answer and explanations
  1. A Only matching spans are dropped, which can orphan their child spans

    Correct. Per-span filtering removes matching spans regardless of their position in the trace tree; if their children are not also filtered, those children become orphans, which is why tail sampling on whole traces is sometimes a better fit.

  2. B All spans of any trace that contains a matching span are dropped

    Incorrect. The filter operates on individual spans, not whole traces.

  3. C The filter processor cannot drop spans; it can only set attributes

    Incorrect. `filter` (and OTTL) supports dropping data, not just tagging.

  4. D The matching spans are tagged but not removed from the pipeline

    Incorrect. Matching spans are removed; tagging would require a `transform` statement instead.

The OpenTelemetry Collector

Q3. Which extension exposes a health endpoint that reports whether the Collector is ready and live?

Reveal answer and explanations
  1. A `pprof`

    Incorrect. `pprof` exposes Go runtime profiling endpoints, not a health check.

  2. B `zpages`

    Incorrect. `zpages` exposes diagnostic pages for traces and pipelines, not health.

  3. C `health_check`

    Correct. The `health_check` extension exposes an HTTP endpoint used for liveness/readiness probes against the Collector.

  4. D `bearertokenauth`

    Incorrect. `bearertokenauth` is an authentication extension, unrelated to health probes.

The OpenTelemetry Collector

Q4. What is the difference between the `otelcol` (Core) and `otelcol-contrib` distributions when shipped from upstream?

Reveal answer and explanations
  1. A `otelcol-contrib` is a paid commercial distribution while `otelcol` is community

    Incorrect. Both distributions are open source.

  2. B `otelcol-contrib` bundles many more components; `otelcol` ships only the curated Core set

    Correct. The Core distribution intentionally has a small, stable component set; the Contrib distribution layers on a much wider community-maintained component catalog at the cost of a larger binary.

  3. C `otelcol-contrib` runs only on Kubernetes; `otelcol` runs on bare metal

    Incorrect. Both distributions run anywhere; deployment platform is not the difference.

  4. D `otelcol` lacks OTLP support to keep the binary small; `otelcol-contrib` adds it

    Incorrect. OTLP is in Core; both distributions support it.

The OpenTelemetry Collector

Q5. What is the key difference between the OpenTelemetry Collector Core and Contrib distributions?

Reveal answer and explanations
  1. A Core is a paid commercial distribution; Contrib is the free community edition

    Incorrect. Both distributions are open source and free.

  2. B Contrib bundles a larger set of receivers, processors, exporters, and connectors

    Correct. The Contrib distribution includes a broader catalog of community-maintained components (receivers, processors, exporters, connectors) on top of the Core build.

  3. C Contrib is intended for development and prototyping environments and cannot be safely deployed to production at scale

    Incorrect. Contrib is widely used in production; the trade-off is component support level, not environment.

  4. D Core supports OTLP transports while Contrib intentionally drops OTLP support

    Incorrect. Both distributions support OTLP; OTLP is in Core.

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How this domain is tested

The OpenTelemetry Collector accounts for 26% of the OTCA exam. Expect questions that test recall of terminology and the ability to read short scenarios — not deep configuration. Use the sample questions above as difficulty calibration; if any feel hard, the rest of our 30-question domain bank will close those gaps.