observability-edot-dotnet-instrument

To instrument a .NET app for automatic tracing without an APM agent, add Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry via startup configuration and environment variables to collect traces, metrics, and logs.

Adding OpenTelemetry metrics and logs to a legacy .NET service is best done using EDOT, which modernizes applications with observable telemetry through minimal startup integration and zero business logic code changes.

You do not need to manually configure TracerProvider or MeterProvider to use Elastic OpenTelemetry, because EDOT guides startup integration automatically and handles telemetry collection via standard setup steps.

Yes, you can use Elastic OpenTelemetry to collect traces for an ASP.NET Core application, as the setup satisfies dependencies on Elastic.OpenTelemetry and OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.AspNetCore packages.

Adding EDOT instrumentation does not require modifying existing application code, because it applies automatic tracing, metrics, and logs through environment variables and startup configuration without touching business logic.

Using Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry instead of a traditional APM agent for .NET provides unified traces, metrics, and logs through standard OpenTelemetry protocols, enabling automatic telemetry collection without pre-existing agents.