Distributed tracing is observing data requests as they flow through a distributed system. Modern microservices architecture often has multiple small independent components—these components constantly communicate and exchange data using APIs to do complex work. With distributed tracing, developers can trace—or visually follow—a request path across different microservices. This visibility helps troubleshoot errors or fix bugs and performance issues.
Additional context
Distributed tracing is observing data requests as they flow through a distributed system. Modern microservices architecture often has multiple small independent components—these components constantly communicate and exchange data using APIs to do complex work. With distributed tracing, developers can trace—or visually follow—a request path across different microservices. This visibility helps troubleshoot errors or fix bugs and performance issues.