Zipkin

Zipkin is a distributed tracing system that helps developers troubleshoot latency problems and understand dependencies in microservices architectures. It collects timing data from various services, showing how requests flow through distributed systems and where delays occur. Zipkin visualizes the complete path of a request across multiple services, displaying which services were called, in what order, and how much time each operation took. The system uses trace IDs to correlate related operations across service boundaries, making it possible to debug issues that span multiple systems. Zipkin includes a query interface and visualization UI for exploring trace data, identifying bottlenecks, and understanding system behavior under different conditions. It supports instrumentation libraries for many programming languages including Java, JavaScript, Go, Python, and Ruby, making it adaptable to polyglot environments. Zipkin stores trace data in backends like Elasticsearch, Cassandra, or MySQL, with configurable retention policies to balance storage costs against historical analysis needs.