Select Page

Jaeger Tracing

Open Source Distributed End-to-End Tracing

Jaeger Tracing is a powerful open source tool that enables detailed tracing of distributed applications.

Jaeger

A look inside your application

Jaeger enables developers and system administrators to trace the flow of a request across all involved components and to monitor an application’s performance and behavior. It is based on distributed trace technology and collects information about each individual request, including the associated processes and interactions, to create a comprehensive picture.

Transparent. Fast. Distributed.

Features

The entire application at a glance

Modern applications and websites often have components spread across multiple servers and services. This makes it difficult to trace the entire flow of a request or transaction if something goes wrong or needs tweaking. This is where Jaeger Tracing comes in. Jaeger consists of five components, which take on different tasks of the system.

Libraries

These instrumentation libraries are included in the application’s code to automatically generate traces for requests and transactions. OpenTelemetry has been used for this since 2022.

Collector

The Collector is responsible for receiving and then storing the trace data sent by the instrumentation libraries.

Storage Backend

The trace data is saved here for later analysis and can therefore be called up at any time. Cassandra, Elasticsearch, Kafka and in-memory systems are supported here.

Query Service

This allows developers to browse and analyze the stored traces to identify performance issues or understand how different components interact.

Visualization

Jaeger provides a graphical interface to display the trace data to get an easier insight into the behavior of the application.

Collection of data via OpenTelemetry

OpenTelemetry is a collection of APIs, SDKs and tools used to instrument, generate, collect and export telemetry data (metrics, logs and traces) to help analyze the performance and behavior of your software. Learn more

Tracing

How does tracing work in detail?

Simply put, Jaeger divides the information gained into two components. For Jaeger, the entire functional sequence is a trace, while individual operations or functions are called spans. A span, e.g. reading from a database, can in turn contain its own spans, which together contain the. Determine runtime.

Perhaps you can’t imagine how Jaeger can be used in a classic web application? We’ll try to make it a little clearer.

  1. Imagine you’ve built an e-commerce website! It consists of various parts such as the web server, the shopping cart system, the ordering system and of course the database.
  2. Now comes Jaeger Tracing, a really powerful tool! We integrate the OpenTelemetry Libraries into every part of your website, so we can track exactly what’s happening with every customer order.
  3. A new customer visits your website and finds a great product. As soon as he clicks “buy” the fun begins! Jaeger automatically starts tracing each step of the request as it moves through the different components.
  4. The web server receives the request and processes it. Jaeger immediately starts the trace for this request. Then the web server calls the shopping cart service to get information about the product – and boom, a new “span” in the trace is created to record the time and information for this step.
  5. The shopping cart service interacts with the database to retrieve the product information and this action is also recorded as a own span in the trace.
  6. Let’s continue: The web server processes further steps such as selecting a delivery address and a payment method and calls up the order service to complete the order. Each of these steps is recorded by Jaeger and immortalized in its own spans.
  7. And now comes the highlight: After completing the order, the collected trace data can be viewed and analyzed. With the help of the Jaeger Query Service and the visualization component, we can see how much time was consumed in each step, if there were any delays and what we can optimize to bring your website to a new level of performance!
  8. Jaeger Tracing gives us a complete overview of your distributed application, helping us identify bottlenecks and improve overall performance.
  • Request 30% 30%
  • Shopping Cart 50% 50%
  • Web Server 60% 60%
  • Database 80% 80%
  • Order 100% 100%

Example

Just start with Jaeger

All necessary components can be tested or provided in production via executable or using the Docker containers. The Getting Started Guide on the project page provides detailed insights into the possibilities and necessary requirements. Learn more

Using the all-in-one container, all necessary components can be started with one command. However, the setup is more recommended for local tests than for productive environments.

 
 
 
docker run -d --name jaeger \
-e COLLECTOR_ZIPKIN_HOST_PORT=:9411 \
-e COLLECTOR_OTLP_ENABLED=true \
-p 6831:6831/udp \
-p 6832:6832/udp \
-p 5778:5778 \
-p 16686:16686 \
-p 4317:4317 \
-p 4318:4318 \
-p 14250:14250 \
-p 14268:14268 \
-p 14269:14269 \
-p 9411:9411 \
jaegertracing/all-in-one:1.47

Service

Jaeger Consulting

We help you with the conception, installation and integration of your environment – for more power, know-how, peace of mind!

Power

Years of experience

We have been supporting our customers in operating their IT infrastructures for many years. Industries, tools, operating systems – we’ve seen, operated and built everything. We know the best practices with Jaeger, Prometheus, Kubernetes & Co. and many topics related to Open Source and Linux.

Know How

Full Understanding

We not only understand your IT systems and services, but the big picture and the countless aspects of operating complex IT infrastructures. There is often a lack of time and personnel with increasing complexity and a rapidly changing IT world.

Peace of Mind

Targeted Reinforcement

As Linux generalists and open source experts, we have a broad base and are well integrated into the open source communities. With us you are never alone! Whether as an IT consultant, engineer, support or architect – we strengthen your team and relieve you of work.

Everything from a single source

The holistic portfolio of NETWAYS

You need support with the planning, implementation and operation of Jaeger Tracing. NETWAYS supports you in all matters relating to consulting, outsourcing and, of course, training.

IT Outsourcing

As an external IT department, we take over the complete operation of entire environments. We take care of all the necessary systems from the open source world and work with you.

Support

With us you get quick help from your personal systems engineer. Whether by phone, chat, email or ticket: we are always there for you! Jaeger not doing what it’s supposed to? Get in touch with us!

Trainings

We are happy to pass on our extensive and profound practical knowledge to you in our training courses and workshops. Of course, as face-to-face and of course online training.

News

Articles from our Blog

Webinars

Our Webinar archive

Just contact us. We look forward to seeing you!