Distributed Tracing for APIs

In microservices, a single user request often travels through many different services. Distributed tracing is a technique to track the full journey of such a request.

It helps you see exactly which services a request touched, in what order, and how long each step took.

Imagine a request failing or performing slowly. In a monolithic app, you might check one log file. But in microservices, this request jumps between many services, each with its own logs.

Without tracing, understanding the full path and pinpointing the issue becomes like looking into a 'black box' – very difficult and time-consuming.