What is Distributed Tracing?
Businesses of all sizes can benefit from the innovative features and ease of use provided by many different software and architecture options available on the market today, including Kubernetes and Docker, to name a couple of examples. Kubernetes and Docker are just two examples of such software and architecture options. Micro-services are widely used by businesses all over the world due to the fact that they provide a diverse selection of services while also making it simple for businesses to deploy and expand micro-services on an enterprise level. Monitoring and debugging the systems must become increasingly time-consuming in order to keep up with the ever-growing complexity of environments made up of numerous micro-services and dealing with a large number of distinct systems in the back-end, which is becoming increasingly difficult. This is due to the fact that diagnosing faults in such a complex environment is incredibly difficult, resulting in the systems becoming progressively slow.
Customers’ perception of the organization as a whole deteriorates, which has a negative impact on its overall performance as a result. The capacity to trace and observe service requests as they travel through distributed systems by collecting data as the requests move from one service to the next is known as distributed tracing. This is crucial because a given environment may have a large number of micro-services, and we need correct information on each and every one of them. You must first grasp what is going on in the system before you can comprehend the flow of requests across your microservices ecosystem. Only then will you be able to pinpoint where and why problems or performance difficulties arise.
How distributed Tracing Works?
Distributed tracing and logging appear to be the same, but there is a big difference between the two. They both make logs and are used to find problems. A log management system is a way to keep track of all the data that an application generates, such as errors, requests that are being handled, and other things. It does this by using the logs that the application makes. Logging is used to make sure that the system is working well and that all of the resources are being used in the right way. They can also be used for many other things, like making an alert based on a certain log entry in a database. When logging a process, each step of the process is recorded on its own. All of the logs for each system will be kept separate if many systems are accessed at the same time. Distributed tracing is a way to keep track of a single transaction as it moves from one location to another. As an example, instead of being kept separately, everything that happens from the time a request is made to the time a response is sent to the user is kept together with a trackingId that is unique to that request. A lot of different types of metadata are generated by distributed tracing, so it can be used to get a clear picture of how the application is working across all of its micro-services and containers. It also shortens the time it takes to find errors, which means that finding the root cause can be done quickly.
Hence distributed tracing is somehow like the logs but it doesn’t maintain the separate logs instead we have logs of a request collected and assigned to a tracking Id.
Different between logging and distributed tracing
Although distributed tracing and logging appear to be the same thing, there is a significant distinction. They both keep track of things and are utilized to solve problems. A log management system is a technique to keep track of all the data generated by an application, such as errors, requests that are being processed, and so on. It accomplishes this by utilizing the application’s logs. Logging is used to ensure that the system is functioning properly and that all resources are being used appropriately. They can also be used for a variety of additional tasks, such as generating an alert based on a certain database log entry. Each step of a process is documented separately while logging it. If many systems are accessed at the same time, all logs for each system will be maintained separate. The term “distributed tracing” refers to a method of tracking a single transaction as it goes from one location to another. Instead of being maintained separately, everything that occurs from the time a request is made until the user receives a response is kept collectively with a trackingId that is unique to that request. Distributed tracing generates a lot of different forms of metadata, thus it may be used to gain a clear picture of how the application works across all of its micro-services and containers. It also reduces the time it takes to detect problems, making it easier to pinpoint the source of the problem.
Final Words
The distributed tracing works quite well when we have a lot of different micro-services operating. You can’t use logging activities if you reside in a particularly complicated area because they might not provide you the appropriate image. It also aids in troubleshooting and identifying issues.
