---
id: wiki-2026-0508-distributed-tracing
title: Distributed Tracing
category: 10_Wiki/Topics
status: verified
canonical_id: self
aliases: [distributed-tracing, opentelemetry-tracing, request-tracing]
duplicate_of: none
source_trust_level: A
confidence_score: 0.9
verification_status: applied
tags: [observability, tracing, opentelemetry, jaeger]
raw_sources: []
last_reinforced: 2026-05-10
github_commit: pending
tech_stack:
  language: typescript
  framework: opentelemetry/tempo
---

# Distributed Tracing

## 매 한 줄
> **"매 trace 가 매 cross-service request 의 X-ray"**. 매 span tree 가 매 service hop, latency, error 의 reveal — 매 microservice debugging 의 essential. 2026 의 매 OpenTelemetry (OTel) 가 매 universal standard, 매 Tempo / Jaeger / Honeycomb / Datadog 가 매 backend, 매 W3C Trace Context 가 매 propagation.

## 매 핵심

### 매 building blocks
- **Trace** — 매 root request 의 unique ID (trace_id, 128-bit).
- **Span** — 매 single operation (HTTP call, DB query, function); has parent_span_id.
- **Context propagation** — `traceparent` HTTP header (W3C) carries trace_id+span_id+flags.
- **Baggage** — key/value propagated alongside (user_id, tenant).
- **Sampling** — 매 head (decide at ingress) vs tail (decide after seeing whole trace).

### 매 OTel architecture
1. **SDK** — instrumentation 의 in-app (auto + manual).
2. **Collector** — 매 receive → process (batch, sample, redact) → export.
3. **Backend** — Tempo (Grafana), Jaeger, Honeycomb, Datadog APM.
4. **UI** — Grafana, Jaeger UI, vendor.

### 매 응용
1. Latency root cause (which span 의 slow).
2. Error correlation (trace 의 `error=true` spans).
3. Service dependency map (service graph from spans).
4. Capacity planning (RED metrics derived from spans).
5. SLO debugging (trace 의 SLO budget burn 의 attribute).

## 💻 패턴

### OTel Node.js auto-instrumentation
```ts
// otel.ts (loaded with --import / NODE_OPTIONS)
import { NodeSDK } from '@opentelemetry/sdk-node';
import { OTLPTraceExporter } from '@opentelemetry/exporter-trace-otlp-http';
import { getNodeAutoInstrumentations } from '@opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node';
import { Resource } from '@opentelemetry/resources';

const sdk = new NodeSDK({
  resource: new Resource({ 'service.name': 'orders-api', 'service.version': '1.4.2' }),
  traceExporter: new OTLPTraceExporter({ url: 'http://otel-collector:4318/v1/traces' }),
  instrumentations: [getNodeAutoInstrumentations()],
});
sdk.start();
```

### Manual span (TypeScript)
```ts
import { trace, SpanStatusCode } from '@opentelemetry/api';
const tracer = trace.getTracer('orders');

export async function placeOrder(input: OrderInput) {
  return tracer.startActiveSpan('placeOrder', async (span) => {
    span.setAttributes({ 'order.customer_id': input.customerId, 'order.line_count': input.lines.length });
    try {
      const order = await db.orders.insert(input);
      await kafka.produce('orders.placed', order);
      span.setStatus({ code: SpanStatusCode.OK });
      return order;
    } catch (e) {
      span.recordException(e as Error);
      span.setStatus({ code: SpanStatusCode.ERROR, message: (e as Error).message });
      throw e;
    } finally {
      span.end();
    }
  });
}
```

### Python (FastAPI auto-instrument)
```python
from opentelemetry import trace
from opentelemetry.instrumentation.fastapi import FastAPIInstrumentor
from opentelemetry.instrumentation.httpx import HTTPXClientInstrumentor
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.grpc.trace_exporter import OTLPSpanExporter
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace import TracerProvider
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace.export import BatchSpanProcessor

provider = TracerProvider()
provider.add_span_processor(BatchSpanProcessor(OTLPSpanExporter(endpoint="otel-collector:4317")))
trace.set_tracer_provider(provider)

app = FastAPI()
FastAPIInstrumentor.instrument_app(app)
HTTPXClientInstrumentor().instrument()
```

### Trace context propagation (W3C)
```text
traceparent: 00-4bf92f3577b34da6a3ce929d0e0e4736-00f067aa0ba902b7-01
              ^  ^                                ^                ^
              version  trace_id (32 hex)          parent_id (16)   flags
tracestate: vendor1=value,vendor2=value
baggage: userId=42,tenantId=acme
```

### OTel Collector pipeline
```yaml
# otel-collector.yaml
receivers:
  otlp: { protocols: { grpc: {}, http: {} } }
processors:
  batch: { timeout: 1s }
  tail_sampling:
    decision_wait: 30s
    policies:
      - { name: errors, type: status_code, status_code: { status_codes: [ERROR] } }
      - { name: slow, type: latency, latency: { threshold_ms: 1000 } }
      - { name: rest, type: probabilistic, probabilistic: { sampling_percentage: 5 } }
exporters:
  otlphttp/tempo: { endpoint: http://tempo:4318 }
  loki: { endpoint: http://loki:3100/loki/api/v1/push }
service:
  pipelines:
    traces: { receivers: [otlp], processors: [batch, tail_sampling], exporters: [otlphttp/tempo] }
```

### Trace ↔ Log correlation
```ts
import pino from 'pino';
import { trace } from '@opentelemetry/api';
const log = pino();
function logWithTrace(msg: string, extra: object = {}) {
  const span = trace.getActiveSpan();
  const ctx = span?.spanContext();
  log.info({ ...extra, trace_id: ctx?.traceId, span_id: ctx?.spanId }, msg);
}
// 매 Loki/Tempo derived field 의 trace 의 jump from log line.
```

### Frontend → backend trace
```ts
// 매 browser OTel SDK 의 traceparent 의 inject
import { trace, context } from '@opentelemetry/api';
import { WebTracerProvider } from '@opentelemetry/sdk-trace-web';
import { FetchInstrumentation } from '@opentelemetry/instrumentation-fetch';
new WebTracerProvider().register();
new FetchInstrumentation({
  propagateTraceHeaderCorsUrls: [/api\.example\.com/],
}).enable();
```

### eBPF-based zero-instrumentation (Beyla / Pixie)
```bash
# Grafana Beyla — 매 Go/Node/Python 의 auto-trace 의 eBPF 의 capture, 매 code change X.
beyla --config beyla.yaml
```

## 매 결정 기준
| 상황 | Approach |
|---|---|
| Greenfield | OTel SDK + Tempo (Grafana stack) |
| Multi-cloud SaaS | Honeycomb / Datadog APM |
| Polyglot legacy | OTel Collector + auto-instrument per lang |
| Zero-code start | eBPF (Beyla, Pixie) |
| 매 cost control | Tail sampling on errors+slow, 5% baseline |
| Strong cardinality | Honeycomb (designed for high-cardinality) |

**기본값**: OTel SDK + W3C Trace Context + Collector with tail sampling + Tempo or vendor backend.

## 🔗 Graph
- 부모: [[Observability]] · [[Microservices]]
- 변형: [[Tempo]]
- 응용: [[Service-Mesh]]
- Adjacent: [[OpenTelemetry]] · [[Logs]]

## 🤖 LLM 활용
**언제**: 매 trace tree 의 root-cause hypothesis, 매 sampling policy review, 매 OTel Collector config debug, 매 span attribute schema design.
**언제 X**: 매 production sampling decision 의 binding (cost + signal tradeoff 가 deep). 매 PII redaction 의 sole reviewer (security review 필요).

## ❌ 안티패턴
- **No sampling**: 매 cost / storage explode — tail sample on errors+slow.
- **High-cardinality on every span**: 매 user_id on every span 가 indexable backend 가 X 면 expensive.
- **Frontend trace 의 X**: 매 server-side latency 만 가 보임 — 매 user-perceived 의 miss.
- **Logs without trace_id**: 매 trace ↔ log jump 가 X.
- **Manual span without `end()`**: 매 leak.
- **Sync span across async boundary**: 매 context lost — `startActiveSpan` 사용.
- **Vendor lock-in via SDK**: 매 OTel SDK + vendor exporter 의 use, vendor SDK 의 X.

## 🧪 검증 / 중복
- Verified (OpenTelemetry spec, W3C Trace Context, Grafana Tempo docs, Honeycomb engineering blog).
- 신뢰도 A.

## 🕓 Changelog
| 날짜 | 변경 |
|---|---|
| 2026-05-08 | Phase 1 |
| 2026-05-10 | Manual cleanup — distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry, sampling, propagation |
