What is the difference between AddHttpClientInstrumentation and AddAspNetCoreInstrumentation

andrew choi 1

In Asp.net core, to provide auto trace instrumentation, we can do the followings.

services.AddOpenTelemetryTracing(providerBuilder =>
{
providerBuilder
.AddSource("TemenosInsightDataService")
.SetResourceBuilder(ResourceBuilder.CreateDefault().AddService("InsightDataService"))
.AddHttpClientInstrumentation()
.AddAspNetCoreInstrumentation()
.AddSqlClientInstrumentation()
.AddConsoleExporter()

});

After reading the limited documentation on github, I still quite understand the purpose and difference between them. It seems to me their main purpose is to allow Enrich function to be called to add additional information to activity. I can do that on both AddHttpClientInstrumentation() and AddAspNetCoreInstrumentation() which will both add to trace context. How to choose which one to use?

Qing Guo - MSFT 886 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2022-09-19T02:55:41.68+00:00

Hi @andrew choi ,
You can go to the three party OpenTelemetry and ask .
Stephen Owen 0 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-12-15T14:15:49.8833333+00:00

I recently had to figure this out as well.

AddAspnetCoreInstrumentation enrichment is where we can configure automatic enrichment for our own web server. Imagine you've got a basic store application, which is using an asp.net core MVC (Model view controller). You could have every single controller action doing the same steps to add tracing or transaction IDs for each request, but that really clutters your code.

Or instead, you could use the AddAspnetCoreInstrumentation method, to setup common tracing for all requests that your web server responds to.

AddHttpClientInstrumentation is enrichment that happens with HttpClients. So imagine that your MVC also calls into another service, maybe a customer tracking service or something, and it uses an HttpClient to interact with the other microservice.

Well, if you want to add tracing and info to your requests that your service makes to another service using HttpClient, then you'd do that under AddHttpClientInstrumentation.

In summary

AddAspnetCoreInstrumentation - enrich your logging when your service answers requests

AddHttpClientInstrumentation - adds enrichment to logs when your service is calling another service using HTTP