diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 56f1b26684..0cc20ddc0b 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -4259,6 +4259,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "num-traits",
  "num_cpus",
  "once_cell",
+ "opentelemetry",
  "pageserver_api",
  "pageserver_client",
  "pageserver_compaction",
@@ -4301,6 +4302,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "tokio-util",
  "toml_edit",
  "tracing",
+ "tracing-opentelemetry",
  "tracing-utils",
  "url",
  "utils",
diff --git a/compute_tools/src/compute.rs b/compute_tools/src/compute.rs
index 354528e2cd..e84d0eb3c3 100644
--- a/compute_tools/src/compute.rs
+++ b/compute_tools/src/compute.rs
@@ -855,6 +855,23 @@ impl ComputeNode {
             info!("Storage auth token not set");
         }
 
+        let mut traceparams = HashMap::new();
+
+        use opentelemetry::propagation::TextMapPropagator;
+        use opentelemetry_sdk::propagation::TraceContextPropagator;
+        use opentelemetry::trace::TraceContextExt;
+        use tracing_opentelemetry::OpenTelemetrySpanExt;
+
+        let cx: opentelemetry::Context = tracing::Span::current().context();
+        let span = cx.span();
+        let span_context = span.span_context();
+
+        info!("span cxt: is_valid: {} is_sampled: {} trace_id: {}",
+              span_context.is_valid(), span_context.is_sampled(), span_context.trace_id());
+        TraceContextPropagator::new().inject_context(&cx, &mut traceparams);
+        config.options(&serde_json::to_string(&traceparams).expect("failed to serialize otel trace params"));
+        info!("getting basebackup with config {:?}", config);
+
         // Connect to pageserver
         let mut client = config.connect(NoTls)?;
         let pageserver_connect_micros = start_time.elapsed().as_micros() as u64;
diff --git a/libs/utils/src/logging.rs b/libs/utils/src/logging.rs
index 987a4539e6..03be6f284a 100644
--- a/libs/utils/src/logging.rs
+++ b/libs/utils/src/logging.rs
@@ -167,6 +167,9 @@ pub fn init(
             .unwrap_or_else(|_| tracing_subscriber::EnvFilter::new("info"))
     };
 
+    // Initialize OpenTelemetry
+    let otlp_layer =
+        tracing_utils::init_tracing_without_runtime("pageserver-x", tracing_utils::ExportConfig::default());
     // NB: the order of the with() calls does not matter.
     // See https://docs.rs/tracing-subscriber/0.3.16/tracing_subscriber/layer/index.html#per-layer-filtering
     use tracing_subscriber::prelude::*;
@@ -188,6 +191,7 @@ pub fn init(
         };
         log_layer.with_filter(rust_log_env_filter())
     });
+    let r = r.with(otlp_layer);
 
     let r = r.with(
         TracingEventCountLayer(&TRACING_EVENT_COUNT_METRIC).with_filter(rust_log_env_filter()),
diff --git a/pageserver/Cargo.toml b/pageserver/Cargo.toml
index 31b31f5c1a..dcd510a928 100644
--- a/pageserver/Cargo.toml
+++ b/pageserver/Cargo.toml
@@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ nix.workspace = true
 num_cpus.workspace = true
 num-traits.workspace = true
 once_cell.workspace = true
+opentelemetry.workspace = true
 pin-project-lite.workspace = true
 postgres_backend.workspace = true
 postgres-protocol.workspace = true
@@ -66,6 +67,7 @@ tokio-stream.workspace = true
 tokio-util.workspace = true
 toml_edit = { workspace = true, features = [ "serde" ] }
 tracing.workspace = true
+tracing-opentelemetry.workspace = true
 tracing-utils.workspace = true
 url.workspace = true
 walkdir.workspace = true
diff --git a/pageserver/src/page_service.rs b/pageserver/src/page_service.rs
index a128f0d731..0a47c6633c 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/page_service.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/page_service.rs
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 //! requests.
 
 use std::borrow::Cow;
+use std::collections::HashMap;
 use std::num::NonZeroUsize;
 use std::os::fd::AsRawFd;
 use std::str::FromStr;
@@ -2630,6 +2631,26 @@ where
             if let Some(app_name) = params.get("application_name") {
                 Span::current().record("application_name", field::display(app_name));
             }
+
+            if let Some(options) = params.get("options") {
+                info!("got options: {options:?}");
+                match serde_json::from_str::<HashMap<String, String>>(&options) {
+                    Ok(traceoptions) => {
+                        if !traceoptions.is_empty() {
+                            use opentelemetry;
+                            use tracing_opentelemetry::OpenTelemetrySpanExt;
+
+                            let parent_ctx =
+                                opentelemetry::global::get_text_map_propagator(|propagator| propagator.extract(&traceoptions));
+                            Span::current().set_parent(parent_ctx);
+                            info!("installed span parent");
+                        }
+                    }
+                    Err(_) => {
+                        error!("could not deserialize 'options', ignoring");
+                    }
+                }
+            }
         };
 
         Ok(())