A single Collector samples without trouble, but as soon as replicas are added, decisions become inconsistent. Trace ID load balancing fixes this: a first tier of Collectors spreads spans by traceID , so every span of a trace lands on the same instance of the second tier, the one running the tail_sampling processor.

Goal: build this two-tier architecture with the load_balancing exporter from the OpenTelemetry Collector contrib repository, check it works and know its limits (pods added or removed, data loss). The principle is backend-independent: it applies to Dynatrace SaaS and Dynatrace Managed alike, because everything happens in the Collector, before the OTLP export.

This article complements the OpenTelemetry tail sampling tutorial , which covers sampling policies.…