In the context of IBM Instana, the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) endpoint on the Instana agent is disabled by default. To enable it, especially in containerized environments like Kubernetes or Red Hat OpenShift, the standard and recommended procedure is to modify the configuration during deployment. This is accomplished by using the Instana agent Helm chart and setting the instana.agent.otlp.enabled parameter to true in the values.yaml file. Helm is the tool used to manage and apply this configuration to the Kubernetes cluster, thereby enabling OTLP ingestion.

A. By configuring multiple tracers: Configuring tracers relates to instrumenting application code to generate telemetry data, not enabling the ingestion protocol on the backend agent.

B. In the settings.hcl: The .hcl extension is for HashiCorp Configuration Language (e.g., Terraform), which is not the standard method for configuring the Instana agent.

C. In the params.yaml: params.yaml is a generic filename. The specific configuration file for the Instana Helm chart is values.yaml, not params.yaml.

1. IBM Documentation for Instana: "Installing the Instana agent on Kubernetes". This document details the use of Helm for installation and configuration. In the "Enable OpenTelemetry" section, it explicitly states: "To enable OTLP in your Helm installation, add the following lines to your values.yaml file: instana.agent.otlp.enabled: true". This directly confirms that Helm is the method used to apply the configuration that enables OTLP.

Source: IBM Documentation, Instana 263, Installing Instana agents > Host agents > On Kubernetes.

2. IBM Documentation for Instana: "OpenTelemetry". This page provides an overview of OTLP integration and notes that the OTLP endpoint is disabled by default on the agent. It directs users to the appropriate installation method (like Helm for Kubernetes) to enable it.

Source: IBM Documentation, Instana 263, OpenTelemetry.