Background: In OSSM 2.x, the istio operator managed the datastores that Istio used for observability. The SMCP resource let you configure these as "addons". This made integration relatively easy as the operator could wire up Istio with the datastore for you but it was problematic for a number of reasons so in OSSM 3.x the Sail Operator no longer manages the datastore. The integration is entirely manual which puts a greater burden on users.

Goal: We want to make it as easy as possible for users to integrate OSSM with RH observability components while leaving the actual management of those components to their respective owners. We want to provide automation or documentation that would make the integration easier without managing the datastores ourselves.

As an example, when you integrate OSSM with User Workload Monitoring for metrics, you need to create a PodMonitor resource in each of your dataplane namespaces in order for your workloads to send metrics to User Workload Monitoring. It would be nice if this were automated for you in some way, for example, by having the PodMonitor resource created automatically in namespaces where a sidecar is running.

Using the Cluster Observability Operator instead of UWM should also be investigated.

Another aspect we should investigate is how we could improve usability around tracing integration.