The component of the OpenTelemetry Collector that allows for the modification of metadata is A. Processors.
Processors are components that can modify the telemetry data before sending it to exporters or other components. Processors can perform various transformations on metrics, traces, and logs, such as filtering, adding, deleting, or updating attributes, labels, or resources. Processors can also enrich the telemetry data with additional metadata from various sources, such as Kubernetes, environment variables, or system information1
For example, one of the processors that can modify metadata is the attributes processor. This processor can update, insert, delete, or replace existing attributes on metrics or traces. Attributes are key-value pairs that provide additional information about the telemetry data, such as the service name, the host name, or the span kind2
Another example is the resource processor. This processor can modify resource attributes on metrics or traces. Resource attributes are key-value pairs that describe the entity that produced the telemetry data, such as the cloud provider, the region, or the instance type3
To learn more about how to use processors in the OpenTelemetry Collector, you can refer to this documentation1.
1: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/collector/configuration/#processors 2: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/processor/attributesprocessor 3: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/main/processor/resourceprocessor
