Distributed Tracing: Observability in Microservices

2025-03-28

Distributed tracing tracks requests across microservices. This guide implements OpenTelemetry for production observability.

OpenTelemetry Instrumentation

Auto-instrument Python services:

Custom Span Instrumentation

Add detailed tracing to critical paths:

Trace Sampling

Control trace volume:

Warnings ⚠️

Trace Explosion: High-traffic systems generate millions of traces per second. Storage costs spiral. The 2035 "Trace Storm" accumulated 50PB of trace data, bankrupting startups.

Performance Overhead: Tracing adds latency (typically 1-5ms per traced operation).

PII Leakage: Traces often capture sensitive data in attributes. GDPR violations are common.

Related Chronicles: The Observability Collapse (2035)

Tools: OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Zipkin, Honeycomb, Datadog APM