a distributed tracing service that helps you analyze and debug applications, especially those built using a microservices or serverless architecture
a GPS tracker for every request that enters your system, it follows the request as it travels through various services (like Lambda, API Gateway, or SQS) and databases (like DynamoDB), recording exactly how long each step took and where errors occured
visualization:
What problem does it solve?
problems are difficult to trace in a multi service setup as compared to monolith
Why is it needed?
Root cause analysis
Performance Optimization
Dependency Mapping
Request Proximity
When to use it?
microservices or serverless (lambda) system
performance is critical
troubleshooting intermittent bugs
How to use it?
for Lambda or API Gateway, a checkbox in the AWS console
for EC2 or ECS , install the X-Ray Daemon / X-Ray Agent
integrate the AWS X-Ray SDK in the source code
X-Ray agent needs IAM permissions to X-Ray
AWS Observability suite
Works with Amazon CloudWatch, CloudWatch ServiceLens, AWS App Mesh, AWS Distro for OpenTelemtry (ADOT)
