This guide explains how to monitor Amazon ECS Fargate (serverless) using OpenTelemetry and SigNoz. You'll deploy an OpenTelemetry Collector as a sidecar container inside your ECS tasks. Applications send OTLP telemetry to localhost; the sidecar exports to SigNoz.
What is ECS Fargate Monitoring with OpenTelemetry?
With the Fargate launch type, AWS manages the infrastructure and you cannot run host-level daemons. The OpenTelemetry Collector sidecar runs in the same task as your application and provides:
- Local OTLP endpoints (gRPC/HTTP) for app telemetry
- ECS container/task metrics via the Task Metadata Endpoint
- Optional app log routing via Fluent Bit/FireLens to the sidecar
Learn the concepts in the ECS Sidecar - Overview.
Prerequisites
- SigNoz backend (SigNoz Cloud or self-hosted)
- ECS cluster using Fargate launch type
- AWS CLI with appropriate permissions
- Ability to update task definitions and IAM roles
How It Works
- Add an OpenTelemetry Collector container as a sidecar in your ECS task definition
- Configure the sidecar to receive app OTLP and collect ECS metrics
- Point your instrumented applications to
http://localhost:4317(or 4318 for HTTP) - Sidecar enriches and forwards telemetry to SigNoz
Step 1: Install the Sidecar
Add the collector container to your ECS task definition and store configuration in SSM Parameter Store.
- Follow ECS Sidecar - Install
Step 2: Configure the Sidecar and Applications
Set
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINTin app containers to the sidecarUse
OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTESwithservice.name=<your-service>Optionally configure FireLens/Fluent Bit to send logs to the sidecar
Follow ECS Sidecar - Configure
What Data Can You Collect?
- ECS container/task metrics (awsecscontainermetrics)
- Application traces and metrics via OTLP
- Application logs via FireLens/Fluent Bit to
fluentforwardreceiver
Visualize in SigNoz
- Build per-service and per-environment dashboards
- Filter by cluster, service, task, and resource attributes
- Correlate traces and logs for rapid debugging
