Distributed Tracing
Coralogix has created a unique tracing experience, allowing you to observe and gain instant insights into your modern micro-services infrastructure. Use our updated Tracing function, alongside Logs and Templates, to enjoy powerful data visualization of your traces and spans.
Enjoy distributed tracing using our Tracing function. Optimize performance, troubleshoot bottlenecks, monitor latency, and link traces to logs in an improved visual format.
What is tracing?
Tracing refers to the ability to trace the flow of a request or transaction through a system. Tracing provides a detailed view of how a request moves through various components of a system, helping to identify bottlenecks and performance issues and understand the overall system behavior.
Traces are made up of spans. A span represents a unit of work in a trace. It encapsulates information about a specific operation within the system, such as a method call or an HTTP request. Spans have a start time and duration and may contain additional metadata.
Query traces and spans
Query traces and spans
To access the Tracing function:
From the Coralogix navigation toolbar, select Explore, then Tracing.
Choose whether to view spans or traces using the Span/Traces toggle in the toolbar.
You can view only Frequent Search (high-priority) data or All priorities (high, medium, and low-priority).Use filters to search for traces or spans of interest.
- When viewing spans, you can run Lucene or DataPrime queries.
- When viewing traces, Coralogix displays the 50 latest traces that meet your filter criteria.
- When viewing spans, 15,000 rows are displayed, sorted by timestamp (ascending or descending).
Hover over a trace or span number and select
more actions menu to:- Visualize data
- Copy the ID
- View the raw span
- Export as JSON or CSV
Note
In the Action column, the value N/A appears when a trace’s root span is missing or when multiple root spans exist for a trace. See Troubleshooting and resolution for details.
Troubleshooting when N/A appears in the Action column
If you see N/A in the Action column when viewing traces, this usually indicates that the root span is missing from the trace data.
Follow these steps to confirm and resolve the issue:
Check for a parentId in the spans.
Select a trace that shows N/A in the Action column.
Click the trace to open its details and copy the traceId.
Go to the Spans view and search using that traceId.
From the results list, select the ellipsis (...) next to a span and choose View Raw Span.
Search the raw span data for the field parentId.
If parentId is present, the trace’s root span was not ingested in Coralogix.
Explanation
The presence of a parentId means the span is a child span, and its root span is missing.
A span without a parentId is considered a root span.
When no root span exists, Coralogix cannot determine the action name, and the Action column displays N/A.
In rare cases, N/A also appears when a trace includes two root spans, which causes ambiguity.
Take action
Review your instrumentation setup and verify that:
The root span is being properly created and included when traces are sent to Coralogix.
The trace export configuration includes all spans in the trace, including the root.
If the issue persists after verifying instrumentation, contact Support for assistance.
Filter
On the left-hand sidebar, you will find the following default filters:
Action
Service
Duration. The Duration filter allows you to find traces that last a long time or are within a certain min-max range that you can easily define, either by adjusting the double range slider from each side or by inputting the exact time in milliseconds in the start-end boxes above the slider.
Teams. When a user is a member of multiple teams, they can search for a trace across multiple teams in a single action. The list of teams will be displayed under the Teams filter.
Once you have added all of the relevant filters, click APPLY.
Save your traces view
If you would like to use the same filters and column order in the future:
Click SAVE VIEW at the top of the grid.
Enter a name for your new view.
Select whether you want to keep the view private or share it with your team.
Select whether you would also like to save the query parameters.
Select if you want to set this as your default view.
To access your saved views or your team’s public views, click SAVE VIEW. Once the View Menu pops up, scroll down and click on the name of your view. You can toggle between All views/My views, or search views by text.
Note
When you save the view, you save the view for the Logs and Tracing tabs at the same time.
Aggregation function
In the tracing screen, the graphs in the top section give you the ability to calculate statistics using any of the supported arithmetic options: Count, AVG, MIN, MAX SUM and Percentiles (50th / 95th / 99th). You have the option of Grouping by: Application, Subsystem, Service and Action.
The tracing screen has 3 default graphs:
- Max Duration grouped by Action:
- Spans (count) grouped by Application:
- Errors (count) grouped by Service:
Choosing any aggregation other than Count changes the Y scale units of the graph into milliseconds.
Visualize traces and spans
Click on a trace of interest to view its underlying spans. Select your preferred visualization mode — Dependencies, Gantt, or Flame view — to explore varied views of the span data.
Find out more here.
APM features
Choose RELATED DATA in your Overview Pane to access our APM features: related logs, events, pod, and host.
Pairing spans with related logs
Define the mapping between the trace spans to the related logs by accessing the RELATED LOGS sub-screen and clicking Setup Correlation. This will open a menu where you will be able to add the relevant field containing the span ID.
Use the POD feature to enjoy additional visualized information.
Use the HOST feature to explore host performance.
There is also the option to be redirected to the relevant logs by clicking on Open Logs Query. This will direct you to a Logs screen, showing you the log containing the correlated span ID.
