Google Cloud Storage

The Google Cloud Storage destination exports telemetry from a Bindplane pipeline as OTLP JSON objects written to a Google Cloud Storage (GCS) bucket. It supports logs, metrics, and traces. Objects are written under a time-partitioned path within the bucket (and optional folder), with an optional prefix and optional gzip compression.

Supported Telemetry Types

Metrics	Logs	Traces
✓	✓	✓

Prerequisites

This destination writes objects to a Google Cloud Storage bucket using a Google service account.

• A Google Cloud project and a pre-created GCS bucket. Bucket names in GCS are globally unique. The destination can create a bucket if it does not exist, but creating it ahead of time avoids name collisions with buckets owned by other organizations, which would otherwise fail with 403 Forbidden on write. See Creating buckets.
• A service account with permission to write objects to the bucket. At minimum, grant the Storage Object Creator role (roles/storage.objectCreator), which includes storage.objects.create, on the bucket or project. If you let the destination create the bucket on first use, the service account also needs bucket-create permission (for example, the Storage Admin role, roles/storage.admin). See IAM roles for Cloud Storage.
• Credentials reachable by the collector. Use Application Default Credentials (auto), an inline service-account JSON key (json), or a path to a service-account key file on the collector host (file). See Authentication.

Configuration

Destination

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
Telemetry Types	Telemetry Selector	No	Logs, Metrics, Traces	Which signals to export to GCS.
Bucket Name	String	Yes	(empty)	Name of the bucket to store objects in. Must be globally unique.
Folder Name	String	No	(empty)	An optional folder to put the objects in. Can be a nested folder path.
Project ID	String	No	(empty)	The ID of the Google Cloud project the bucket belongs to. Read from the credentials if not configured.

Authentication

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
Authentication Method	Enum: auto, json, file	No	auto	The method used for authenticating to Google Cloud. auto uses Application Default Credentials; json uses an inline key; file reads a key file on the collector.
Credentials	String	Yes *	(empty)	JSON value from a Google service account credential file. Sensitive. Shown and required when Authentication Method is json.
Credentials File	String	Yes *	(empty)	Path to a Google service account credential file on the collector system. The collector's runtime user must have permission to read this file. Shown and required when Authentication Method is file.

* Required only for the matching Authentication Method.

Bucket Creation

These values are only used when the destination creates the bucket.

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
Bucket Location	Enum (creatable)	No	US	The location of the bucket. Multi-region (US, EU, ASIA), dual-region, and regional values are accepted. See Bucket locations.
Storage Class	Enum: STANDARD, NEARLINE, COLDLINE, ARCHIVE	No	STANDARD	The storage class of the bucket. See Storage classes.

Advanced

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
Granularity	Enum: minute, hour	No	minute	Time granularity of timestamps in the object path.
Compression	Enum: none, gzip	No	none	The type of compression applied to the data before sending it to storage.
Object Prefix	String	No	(empty)	An optional prefix to prepend to the object file name.
Timeout	Integer (seconds)	No	30	The maximum amount of time to wait for a batch to be sent to the destination.
Drop Raw Copy	Boolean	No	true	When enabled, the raw copy of the log stored in log.record.original is dropped. Logs only.

Retry on Failure

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
Enable Retry on Failure	Boolean	No	true	Attempt to resend telemetry data that has failed to be transmitted to the destination.
Initial interval	Integer (seconds)	No	5	Time to wait after the first failure before retrying. Shown when retry is enabled.
Max interval	Integer (seconds)	No	30	The upper bound on backoff. Shown when retry is enabled.
Max elapsed time	Integer (seconds)	No	300	The maximum amount of time spent trying to send a batch, used to avoid a never-ending retry loop. Shown when retry is enabled.

Sending Queue

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
Enable Sending Queue	Boolean	No	true	Buffer telemetry data temporarily before sending to help ensure telemetry is not lost during a temporary network outage.
Number of Consumers	Integer	No	10	Number of consumers that dequeue batches. Shown when the sending queue is enabled.
Queue Size	Integer	No	5000	Maximum number of batches kept in memory before dropping. Shown when the sending queue is enabled.
Enable Persistent Queuing	Boolean	No	true	Buffer telemetry data to disk before sending to help ensure telemetry is not lost during network outages or collector restarts. Shown when the sending queue is enabled.
Persistent Queue Storage	Extension	Yes	file_storage_persistent_queue	The storage to use for the persistent queue. Shown when both the sending queue and persistent queuing are enabled.

Examples

Export all signals to a bucket with gzip compression

This configuration exports logs, metrics, and traces to the bucket prod-telemetry-archive. The project ID is read from the credentials. Objects are written under a folder and object prefix and compressed with gzip.

apiVersion: bindplane.observiq.com/v1
kind: Destination
metadata:
  name: google-cloud-storage
spec:
  type: googlecloudstorage
  parameters:
    - name: telemetry_types
      value:
        - Logs
        - Metrics
        - Traces
    - name: bucket_name
      value: prod-telemetry-archive
    - name: folder_name
      value: otel
    - name: auth_type
      value: file
    - name: credentials_file
      value: /etc/otel/gcs-sa.json
    - name: bucket_location
      value: US
    - name: bucket_storage_class
      value: STANDARD
    - name: compression
      value: gzip
    - name: object_prefix
      value: bindplane_

With this configuration, object paths in GCS look like:

otel/year=2026/month=06/day=18/hour=18/minute=00/bindplane_logs_{random_id}.json.gz
otel/year=2026/month=06/day=18/hour=18/minute=00/bindplane_metrics_{random_id}.json.gz
otel/year=2026/month=06/day=18/hour=18/minute=00/bindplane_traces_{random_id}.json.gz

Configuration Tips

• Pre-create the bucket and grant the service account roles/storage.objectCreator. Letting the destination create the bucket requires broader permissions (bucket-create) and risks a 403 on a globally taken name.
• Bucket Location and Storage Class only apply when the destination creates the bucket. For an existing bucket they are ignored, so set them in GCS instead.
• Use gzip compression to reduce GCS storage cost and egress for archived telemetry. Set Granularity to hour to write fewer, larger objects when per-minute partitioning is too granular.

Troubleshooting

Writes fail with 403 Forbidden

Symptoms: objects are not written and the collector logs 403 Forbidden.

Solutions:

1. Confirm the service account has roles/storage.objectCreator (or equivalent) on the target bucket or project.
2. If the bucket does not yet exist and you expect the destination to create it, the name may be taken by another organization (names are globally unique). Pre-create the bucket under a unique name and set Bucket Name to match.

Authentication errors

Symptoms: the collector cannot authenticate to Google Cloud.

Solutions:

1. For Authentication Method file, verify the path is correct on the collector host and the collector's runtime user can read it.
2. For json, confirm the pasted credential is valid service-account JSON. For auto, confirm Application Default Credentials are available in the collector's environment.

Dropped data during outages

Symptoms: telemetry is lost during network interruptions or collector restarts.

Solutions:

1. Keep the sending queue enabled and enable Persistent Queuing so batches survive restarts.
2. Increase Queue Size if batches are dropped under sustained backpressure, and confirm retry on failure is enabled.

Standalone Destination

apiVersion: bindplane.observiq.com/v1
kind: Destination
metadata:
  name: google-cloud-storage
spec:
  type: googlecloudstorage
  parameters:
    - name: telemetry_types
      value:
        - Logs
        - Metrics
        - Traces
    - name: bucket_name
      value: prod-telemetry-archive
    - name: auth_type
      value: file
    - name: credentials_file
      value: /etc/otel/gcs-sa.json

Related Resources

• Google Cloud Storage Exporter (googlecloudstorageexporter)
• IAM roles for Cloud Storage