Distributed Tracing

In modern, intricate software ecosystems, the ability to monitor and comprehend application performance is paramount. Metrics and logs are crucial in offering valuable insights into system behavior, aiding in routine troubleshooting and performance analysis. However, when diagnosing complex issues spanning across distributed environments, these conventional tools often fall short of providing the comprehensive context needed.

This is where distributed tracing steps in as a game-changing technique. Unlike logs and metrics, distributed tracing excels at delivering a holistic perspective of an application’s behavior within distributed architectures. In this lesson, we'll delve into what distributed tracing entails, exploring its key components and, crucially, how it seamlessly complements and enhances the capabilities of both metrics and logs.

What distributed tracing provides

Consider the following microservice-based application: