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

1. Add an OpenTelemetry Collector container as a sidecar in your ECS task definition
2. Configure the sidecar to receive app OTLP and collect ECS metrics
3. Point your instrumented applications to http://localhost:4317 (or 4318 for HTTP)
4. 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_ENDPOINT in app containers to the sidecar

• Use OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES with service.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 fluentforward receiver

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

Next Steps

1. ECS Sidecar - Overview
2. ECS Sidecar - Install
3. ECS Sidecar - Configure