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TL;DRThis guide shows you how to route telemetry to ClickHouse Observability using Bindplane’s native ClickStack destination. You’ll learn how to:
  • Configure ClickHouse Observability as a destination in Bindplane
  • Create a configuration to process and route telemetry
  • Remotely deploy configurations to OTel collectors and start collecting data
  • View telemetry in ClickHouse Observability
Bindplane manages the collectors in your environment and forwards their telemetry to ClickHouse Observability.Time required: 10-15 minutes

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What is Bindplane?

Bindplane is an OpenTelemetry-native telemetry pipeline that provides centralized management for OpenTelemetry Collectors. It simplifies operating large collector fleets by offering visual configuration editing, safe rollouts, and pipeline intelligence.

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Why Bindplane + ClickHouse Observability?

ClickHouse Observability provides telemetry storage, search, and investigation tools. Bindplane manages the OpenTelemetry Collectors that collect and forward data from your environment. Bindplane solves this by providing:
  • Centralized management for OpenTelemetry Collectors from thousands to over a million
  • Visual configuration editing with safe, one-click rollouts
  • Automatic resource detection and enrichment applied consistently before data reaches ClickHouse Observability
  • Fan-out routing, so the same telemetry streams can be sent to ClickHouse Observability and other destinations simultaneously
  • Full pipeline visibility, including collector health, throughput, and end-to-end performance
Key takeaways
  • ClickHouse Observability stores telemetry and supports investigation
  • Bindplane manages the ingestion pipeline and operational complexity of running collector fleets

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Prerequisites

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Integrate ClickHouse Observability with Bindplane

1

Configure ClickHouse Observability as a destination

In Bindplane, open Library → Add Destination and select ClickStack. This is the name of Bindplane’s destination for sending telemetry to ClickHouse Observability over OTLP.
Send telemetry to your managed OTLP endpoint. ClickHouse handles ingestion, schemas, storage, and scaling.
  1. Set Protocol to HTTP.
  2. Set Hostname to the hostname from your managed OTLP endpoint, without https:// or the port. For an endpoint such as https://<service-id>.otel.<region>.aws.clickhouse.com:4318, enter <service-id>.otel.<region>.aws.clickhouse.com.
  3. Set Port to 4318.
  4. Set API Ingestion Key to Bearer <YOUR_INGESTION_API_KEY>, including the Bearer prefix. This field supplies the authorization header.
  5. Turn on Enable TLS and leave Skip TLS Certificate Verification off.
Use the managed OTLP endpoint, not your ClickHouse database endpoint on port 8443.
Give the destination a name, such as Observability production, then click Save. Keep the default gzip compression unless you have verified that your endpoint supports another algorithm.
2

Create a configuration

Once your destination is configured, create a configuration to process and route telemetry:
  1. Navigate to Configurations → Create Configuration
  2. Give the configuration a name (e.g., “Observability pipeline”)
  3. Select the Collector Type and Platform for your deployment
  4. Add sources:
    • Click Add Source to select from 80+ available sources
    • For testing, you can add a telemetry generator source to simulate traffic
    • For production, add sources for your actual telemetry (logs, metrics, traces)
  5. Add your destination:
    • Click Add Destination
    • Select the destination you created in the previous step
    • Choose which telemetry types to send (Logs, Metrics, Traces, or all)
Key takeawaysYou can add processors for filtering, sampling, masking, enrichment, batching, and more to shape telemetry before it reaches ClickHouse Observability. This ensures consistent, structured data arrives in ClickHouse.
3

Add processors (optional)

Bindplane provides pipeline intelligence and processor recommendations. You can add processors to:
  • Filter: Reduce data volume by excluding unnecessary telemetry
  • Sample: Apply sampling strategies to high-volume traces
  • Enrich: Add resource attributes, labels, or metadata
  • Transform: Modify telemetry structure or content
  • Batch: Optimize batch sizes for efficient transmission
These processors are applied consistently across your collector fleet before data reaches ClickHouse Observability.
4

Deploy collectors and start rollout

  1. Add a collector (BDOT Collector) to your configuration:
  2. Assign the configuration to your collectors:
    • Select the collectors you want to use
    • Assign your configuration to them
  3. Start a rollout:
    • Click Start Rollout to deploy the configuration
    • Bindplane will validate the configuration before rolling it out
    • Monitor the rollout status in the Bindplane UI
Key takeawaysBindplane provides safe, one-click rollouts with validation. You can monitor collector health, throughput, and any errors in real-time through the Bindplane interface.
5

Verify telemetry in ClickHouse Observability

Once the configuration is rolled out, telemetry starts flowing into ClickHouse Observability from your managed collector fleet:
  1. Open ClickHouse Observability for your service in the ClickHouse Cloud console
  2. Search for your services in the Search view and use Chart Explorer for metrics
  3. Confirm that the expected telemetry from your Bindplane-managed collectors has arrived
  4. If data is missing, check the Bindplane collector logs for connection or authentication errors

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Advanced configuration

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Fan-out routing

Bindplane supports fan-out routing, allowing you to send the same telemetry streams to multiple destinations simultaneously. You can:
  • Send logs, metrics, and traces to ClickHouse Observability for long-term storage and analysis
  • Route the same data to other observability platforms for real-time alerting
  • Forward specific telemetry to SIEM platforms for security analysis
This is configured by adding multiple destinations to your Bindplane configuration.

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Compression and performance

Keep gzip compression enabled to reduce bandwidth usage. Other compression algorithms depend on the protocol and must be supported by the receiving endpoint. For fully managed deployments, use gzip.

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Next steps

Now that you have telemetry flowing from Bindplane to ClickHouse Observability, you can:
  • Build dashboards: Create visualizations in ClickHouse Observability for logs, metrics, and traces
  • Set up alerts: Configure alerts in ClickHouse Observability for critical conditions
  • Scale your deployment: Add more collectors and sources as your observability needs grow
  • Optimize your pipeline: Use Bindplane’s pipeline intelligence to identify optimization opportunities

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