.NET Continuous Profiler: Under the hood | Datadog

This post details the technical architecture and implementation choices behind Datadog's .NET profiler, focusing on its continuous profiling capabilities. It explains the profiler's architecture, including samplers, providers, aggregators, and exporters, and how it generates .pprof files. It also covers backend processing, including associating profiles with traces and spans using runtime IDs, and the techniques used to clean up .NET call stacks for improved readability. The implementation details highlight the use of native code (C++ and Rust) and its integration as an ICorProfilerCallback plugin during application startup.