Migrate Traces from New Relic

Migrating distributed tracing from New Relic to SigNoz involves replacing New Relic APM agents with OpenTelemetry instrumentation. This guide will walk you through the process for different scenarios.

Understanding Trace Collection Differences

Before migrating, it's important to understand the key differences between New Relic and SigNoz tracing:

Feature	New Relic	SigNoz	Notes
Collection Method	Proprietary APM agents, OpenTelemetry support	OpenTelemetry native	SigNoz is built specifically for OpenTelemetry
Sampling	Head-based and tail-based sampling	Head-based and tail-based sampling	Both support similar sampling approaches
Visualization	Distributed tracing UI	Comprehensive trace analysis UI	Similar capabilities with different interfaces
Service Maps	Available	Available	Both provide dependency visualization
Span Attributes	Custom attributes & dimensions	OpenTelemetry attributes	Different naming conventions

Migration Approaches

The approach for migrating traces depends on how you're currently collecting traces in New Relic.

1. For Applications Already Using OpenTelemetry with New Relic

If your applications are already instrumented with OpenTelemetry and sending data to New Relic:

Update your OpenTelemetry configuration to point to SigNoz instead of New Relic
Modify your exporter configuration. Here's a generic example:

# Before: New Relic OTLP endpoint
otlp:
  endpoint: "https://otlp.nr-data.net:4317"
  headers:
    "api-key": "NEW_RELIC_LICENSE_KEY"

# After: SigNoz OTLP endpoint
otlp:
  # For SigNoz Cloud
  endpoint: "ingest.{region}.signoz.cloud:443"
  headers:
    "signoz-ingestion-key": "<your-ingestion-key>"
  tls:
    insecure: false

  # For Self-hosted SigNoz
  # endpoint: "<signoz-otel-collector>:4317"
  # tls:
  #   insecure: true

2. Replacing New Relic APM Agents with OpenTelemetry

For applications using New Relic's proprietary APM agents:

Remove the New Relic agent from your application
Follow the appropriate SigNoz instrumentation guide for your programming language
Configure the OpenTelemetry SDK to send trace data to SigNoz

SigNoz provides detailed instrumentation guides for various languages and frameworks including:

Java
Python
Node.js
Go
Ruby
.NET
PHP Check this document for a list of languages and frameworks

Example: Migrating from New Relic Java Agent to OpenTelemetry

Step 1: Remove the New Relic Java agent configuration from your application:

Remove the -javaagent:/path/to/newrelic.jar JVM argument
Remove any New Relic configuration files (e.g., newrelic.yml)

Step 2: Add the OpenTelemetry Java agent:

Download the OpenTelemetry Java agent
Add the agent to your JVM arguments:

java -javaagent:/path/to/opentelemetry-javaagent.jar \
     -Dotel.service.name=your-service-name \
     -Dotel.exporter.otlp.endpoint=http://<SigNoz endpoint>:4317 \
     -jar your-application.jar

For more detailed instructions, see the SigNoz Java Instrumentation document.

Attribute Mapping

When migrating from New Relic to SigNoz, you'll need to map New Relic's span attributes to OpenTelemetry's semantic conventions. Here are some common mappings:

New Relic Attribute	OpenTelemetry Attribute
`entity.name`	`service.name`
`entity.type`	`service.namespace`
`transactionName`	`http.route`
`http.method`	`http.request.method`
`http.url`	`url.full`
`http.statusCode`	`http.response.status_code`
`error.message`	`exception.message`
`error.class`	`exception.type`
`error.stack`	`exception.stacktrace`
`db.statement`	`db.statement`
`db.instance`	`db.name`
`span.kind`	`span.kind`
`peer.hostname`	`server.address`