Weaving Legacy and OpenTelemetry - A Schema Strategy With Weaver

Explore a lightning talk presenting a practical schema strategy for migrating from proprietary tracing systems to OpenTelemetry using the Weaver tool. Learn how Comcast successfully addressed the challenge of unifying legacy telemetry with OpenTelemetry standards while maintaining compatibility with existing queries, visualizations, and alerts. Discover how to leverage OpenTelemetry Weaver to create unified schemas that combine semantic conventions with custom span and resource attributes, enabling gradual adoption without disrupting current setups. Examine the configuration of Weaver using Jinja templates to generate outputs in multiple formats including JSON, YAML, and Markdown for backend ingestion and schema documentation. Understand how flexible namespacing allows integration of domain-specific attributes alongside standardized ones while preserving backend compatibility, ensuring consistency across pipelines and improved clarity for engineering teams reviewing trace attribute definitions.