What is request tracing?

Request tracing is the process of tracking the path of a request through a distributed system, recording its execution stages and collecting details (start time, end time, duration, errors) for each service it passes through.

It is used for:

• Identifying performance bottlenecks.
• Debugging distributed systems.
• Analyzing data flows.
• Monitoring service health.

It is implemented using a unique trace identifier (trace ID), which is passed between services during each call, and a span identifier (span ID) for each individual processing stage within a service.