[exporter/instana] Consider deprecating component

[crobert-1]

Component(s)

exporter/instana

Describe the issue you're reporting

I bumped into this while reading https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/issues/30048, but for context, IBM Instana Observability is a vendor-specific backend that accepts trace data.

According to their documentation, this exporter is deprecated for usage. The officially recommended way to use the OpenTelemetry Collector to export telemetry is to use the OTLP exporter, and set a specific setting in your Instana backend.

Is there a reason to keep this exporter? Note that marking it as deprecated is not deleting it, but simply a notification that users should migrate to what Instana officially supports. Read here for deprecation information in the collector.

[github-actions[bot]]

Pinging code owners:

• exporter/instana: @jpkrohling @hickeyma

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[jpkrohling]

Sounds good to me, but given this is owned by a vendor, I'd request their input on this. @hickeyma, would you please comment on this?

[hickeyma]

@joshleecreates Do you mind answering this?

[joshleecreates]

Yes, we should mark this as deprecated, thank you!

[crobert-1]

Thanks @hickeyma and @joshleecreates! Sorry about posting this out of the blue, it was meant more to be a question than anything else. I definitely didn't mean to push anything one way or another.

I've opened a PR (https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/pull/31821) that makes this change, but it's no problem to keep the exporter in this repository for as long as you need. The goal is to accurately reflect documentation and status here. 👍

[joshleecreates]

No problem at all, thank you for catching the discrepancy!