Distributed Tracing
Today we’re announcing the general availability of distributed tracing, designed to give your software teams an easy way to capture, visualize, and analyze traces through complex architectures, including architectures that use both monoliths and microservices.
Every customer with a New Relic APM Pro subscription will get this new capability at no extra charge, you will just have to update your agents and enable distributed tracing in your agent configuration. This initial release includes support for Java, Node.js, Python, and Ruby, and assembles trace data collected across polyglot environments into detailed scatter- and waterfall visualizations. In the coming months, our team plans to incrementally deliver on a larger distributed tracing roadmap with support for .NET and Go coming first, followed by support for PHP.
New Distributed Tracing View in APM:
For DevOps teams, understanding how a downstream service “a few hops away” can create a critical bottleneck for their service is essential for fast problem resolution. Just as important, it also provides teams with insight on how to optimize their code. If DevOps teams can’t determine when, why, and how an issue happens, small defects may continue to linger in production until a perfect storm of events aligns and the system breaks all at once. Distributed tracing provides engineers with the detailed view of individual requests so they can point out precisely what part(s) of the larger system are problematic.
What’s next
This release is just the first of many, and is part of a larger product roadmap designed to help teams understand complex software environments using distributed tracing. Our roadmap includes:
- Updates to our .NET, Go, and PHP agents to support distributed tracing
- Integration with New Relic Browser and New Relic Mobile to connect client and backend performance
- Improved integration with New Relic Synthetics and Infrastructure
- Support for OpenTracing and OpenCensus
Be sure to review the transition guide and distributed tracing documentation.
Please also be sure to post any questions or comments about using this new feature in the APM category in the community and tag it with #distributedtracing .
For extra juicy details on distributed tracing use cases, check out our blog post!
And start the transition now with our Relic Solution guide to a successful distributed tracing transition!
Safe Harbor Statement
This post contains “forward-looking” statements, as that term is defined under the federal securities laws, including but not limited to future roadmap for distributed tracing as well as the benefits of such features. The achievement or success of the matters covered by such forward-looking statements are based on New Relic’s current assumptions, expectations, and beliefs and are subject to substantial risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and changes in circumstances that may cause New Relic’s actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement. Further information on factors that could affect New Relic’s financial and other results and the forward-looking statements in this press release / post is included in the filings New Relic makes with the SEC from time to time, including in New Relic’s most recent Form 10-K, particularly under the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” Copies of these documents may be obtained by visiting New Relic’s Investor Relations website at http://ir.newrelic.com or the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. New Relic assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.