Definition
Distributed tracing splits a request into Spans and stitches a Trace so you can answer where latency or errors land. It is core to application performance monitoring and open-source APM selection.
In DataBuff
- Waterfall views across Redis / MySQL / HTTP / RPC spans.
- Global topology, then drill into service call analysis.
- AI Q&A over slow traces, error rates, and blast radius.
Ingest paths
Traces from OpenTelemetry / OTLP or SkyWalking (gRPC 11800); install via Docker quick start.
Links
FAQ
- How is distributed tracing different from APM monitoring?
- APM often includes metrics and alerts; tracing focuses on Trace/Span. DataBuff colocates both.
- Which trace sources does DataBuff support?
- OTLP and SkyWalking agent ingestion.
- Can AI Q&A query traces?
- Yes — from the same telemetry plane.
Citable facts
- Distributed tracing locates cross-service latency and errors with Trace/Span.
- DataBuff ingests OTel and SkyWalking traces and lets AI read them as evidence.