feat: Blog for supporting otel upgrade Nr-467937

src/content/whats-new/2025/10/whats-new-10-13-support-aws-otel10-format.md

@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+---
+title: 'New Relic AWS Metric Streams Integration Now Supports OpenTelemetry 1.0 Format'
+summary: 'Enhanced Support for the OpenTelemetry 1.0 output format in our AWS CloudWatch Metric Streams integration, offering improved performance and richer metadata for all setup methods.'
+releaseDate: '2025-10-13'
+---
+
+We are excited to announce a significant enhancement to our AWS infrastructure monitoring capabilities. Our **AWS CloudWatch Metric Streams** integration now supports the **OpenTelemetry (OTEL) 1.0** output format. This update allows you to leverage the latest industry standards for telemetry data, providing a more efficient and future-proof way to stream metrics from your AWS environment into New Relic.
+
+## What's Changed
+
+You can now configure your AWS Metric Stream integration to send data using the OTEL 1.0 format, which uses an efficient binary protobuf encoding. To ensure backward compatibility and a seamless transition for existing users, our updated CloudFormation and Terraform integrations will continue to **default to the OTEL 0.7 format**. You can easily change the default to use the new 1.0 format.
+
+This enhancement provides several key benefits:
+
+- **Improved Performance and Efficiency**: Utilize the highly efficient binary protobuf format of OTEL 1.0, reducing data transfer volume and processing overhead compared to JSON-based formats.
+- **Richer Metadata and Future-Proofing**: Align with the latest OpenTelemetry standards, ensuring compatibility with future enhancements and enabling richer, more detailed metric attributes.
+
+## How to Enable OpenTelemetry 1.0
+
+You can enable the OTEL 1.0 format based on your integration method.
+
+### CloudFormation Template
+
+#### For New Stacks
+
+When setting up a new stack with our latest template, you will have the option to select `opentelemetry1.0` as the output format. The template continues to default to `opentelemetry0.7`.
+
+#### For Existing Stacks
+
+If you have an existing stack, you must perform a stack update.
+
+1.  Navigate to your stack in the AWS CloudFormation console.
+2.  Initiate an update and choose **Replace existing template**.
+3.  Provide the following updated template URL:
+    [https://nr-downloads-main.s3.amazonaws.com/cloud_integrations/aws/cloudformation/newrelic-cloudformation-mstreams.yml](https://nr-downloads-main.s3.amazonaws.com/cloud_integrations/aws/cloudformation/newrelic-cloudformation-mstreams.yml)
+4.  Proceed with the stack update, selecting `opentelemetry1.0` when prompted for the output format.
+
+### Terraform
+
+**Note:** Support for the OTEL 1.0 format is available starting with version 3.70.6 of the New Relic Terraform provider.
+
+Our Terraform configuration uses the official `newrelic` provider to create the necessary AWS and New Relic resources. To enable OTEL 1.0, you define a variable for the output format and set its value to `opentelemetry1.0`.
+
+First, define the variable in your `variables.tf` file, defaulting to `opentelemetry0.7` for backward compatibility:
+
+```tf
+variable "output_format" {
+  description = "The output format for the CloudWatch Metric Stream. Use 'opentelemetry0.7' for OTEL 0.7 or 'opentelemetry1.0' for OTEL 1.0."
+  type        = string
+  default     = "opentelemetry0.7"
+}
+```
+
+Then, in your `main.tf`, reference this variable in the `aws_cloudwatch_metric_stream` resource:
+
+```tf
+resource "aws_cloudwatch_metric_stream" "newrelic_metric_stream" {
+  # ... other properties like name, role_arn, firehose_arn ...
+
+  output_format = var.output_format
+
+  # ... include/exclude filters ...
+}
+```
+
+When you run your Terraform plan, you can set `output_format` to `opentelemetry1.0` to enable the new format.
+
+### Manual setup
+
+If you configured your integration manually, you can update the format directly in the AWS console.
+
+1.  Navigate to **CloudWatch > Metrics > Streams**.
+2.  Select the metric stream that forwards data to New Relic's Kinesis Firehose.
+3.  Click **Edit**.
+4.  Under **Output format**, change the selection to **OpenTelemetry 1.0**.
+5.  Click **Save**.
+