distributed-tracing

Deploy the Jaeger Operator into an observability namespace, then apply a Jaeger custom resource with a production strategy and Elasticsearch storage. For local testing, run the jaegertracing/all-in-one Docker image exposing the UI on port 16686.

Create a TracerProvider with your service name, attach a BatchSpanProcessor with a Jaeger exporter, and call FlaskInstrumentor().instrument_app(app). Use tracer.start_as_current_span to add custom spans with attributes around business logic and database calls.

Jaeger provides an all-in-one option with built-in UI and Elasticsearch storage, suited for standalone deployments. Tempo integrates with Grafana and stores traces in object storage like S3, fitting teams already using the Grafana stack.

Missing traces usually come from a wrong collector endpoint, network connectivity issues, or sampling configuration dropping all spans. Check the exporter endpoint, verify connectivity to the collector, and review application logs for export errors.

Sample 1-10% of traces in production to keep overhead under 1% CPU impact. Use probabilistic sampling with a param like 0.01, rate-limiting sampling for a fixed traces-per-second cap, or parent-based sampling for deterministic decisions.