Trace
The full end-to-end path of a request through a distributed system, composed of multiple spans. A trace shows which services were called, in what order, and how long each took.
What is Trace?
The full end-to-end path of a request through a distributed system, composed of multiple spans. A trace shows which services were called, in what order, and how long each took.
Trace is a intermediate-level concept that sits in the Observability & Monitoring area of system design. Engineers reach for it whenever they need to reason about real-world trade-offs in that space — not just for textbook correctness, but because real production systems at companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Google make these decisions every day.
If you want to go deeper than this definition — with diagrams, code, and a quiz to lock it in — work through the "Trace" lesson linked below. It walks through the why, the mechanism, the trade-offs, and how the giants actually use it in production.
Learn Trace in depth
Full interactive lesson with diagrams, code examples, real-world references, and a quiz.
Open the Trace lessonRelated lessons
Lessons that touch on Trace as part of a larger topic.
Trace IDs
The unique identifier for a distributed trace, one ID that ties together every service a request touches
intermediate · observability monitoring
Dynatrace
AI-driven full-stack observability, automatic discovery, baselining, and root cause analysis
intermediate · observability monitoring
Observability Overview
The three pillars of observability, logs, metrics, and traces, and how they work together to make complex systems understandable
intermediate · observability monitoring
Span IDs
Individual operations within a trace, each span is one unit of work with a start time, duration, and parent
intermediate · observability monitoring
Distributed Context Propagation
Passing trace context, baggage, and metadata across service boundaries, the glue of distributed tracing
intermediate · observability monitoring
See also
Related glossary terms you might want to look up next.
Span
A single unit of work in a distributed trace, representing one operation (e.g., an HTTP call or database query). Spans are nested to form a trace tree.
Distributed Tracing
Tracking a request as it flows through multiple services in a distributed system. Each service adds its trace, creating a full picture of the request journey.
Observability
The ability to understand a system's internal state from its external outputs. Built on three pillars: metrics, logs, and traces.