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DevOps & Automation · Intermediate

Distributed Tracing

Tracking a single request as it flows across multiple services by propagating a trace context and recording timed spans.

Definition

Each service records spans with start time, duration, and attributes, linked by a shared trace ID and parent span IDs. Tracing reveals latency bottlenecks and failure points in microservice architectures. Tools include Jaeger, Zipkin, AWS X-Ray, Azure Application Insights, and Google Cloud Trace.

Example

A trace shows a 2-second checkout request where 1.8 seconds are spent in the inventory service's database call.

Exam tip

AWS X-Ray, Cloud Trace, and Application Insights are the vendor answers when exams ask how to find latency across microservices.

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