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Community Blog ASM Capabilities 4 - Implement Distributed Tracing in ASM

ASM Capabilities 4 - Implement Distributed Tracing in ASM

This article discusses how to implement distributed tracing in Alibaba Cloud Service Mesh (ASM).

By Wang Xining

This is the fourth edition in the ASM Extended Capabilities series, a collection of articles that describes some extended capabilities of Alibaba Cloud Service Mesh (ASM).

Service Mesh and Distributed Tracing

According to the OpenTracing website, distributed tracing, also known as distributed request tracing, is a method for the general analysis and monitoring of applications, primarily applications built using the microservice architecture. Distributed tracing helps locate faults and identify the causes for performance deterioration.

A common misunderstanding is that no code changes are required when the ASM is used for service tracing. According to the official Istio introduction, even though the Istio proxy can automatically send span information, applications still need to transmit suitable HTTP request headers to associate the span information with the correct trace. Therefore, applications need to collect the following request headers and transmit them from incoming requests to outgoing requests.

  • x-request-id
  • x-b3-traceid
  • x-b3-spanid
  • x-b3-parentspanid
  • x-b3-sampled
  • x-b3-flags
  • x-ot-span-context

The x-b3 header originates from the Zipkin project, and "b3" in the header is named after BigBrotherBird, the original name of Zipkin. The transmission of these headers between services is called B3 transmission. According to Zipkin principles, these attributes are usually transmitted to downstream nodes through HTTP request headers to ensure that all activities originating from the same root are collected together.

Alibaba Cloud Tracing Analysis Service

Tracing Analysis provides a wide range of tools to help developers identify performance bottlenecks of distributed applications and improve the efficiency of developing and troubleshooting applications that use the microservice architecture. These tools help to map traces, offer trace topologies, analyze application dependencies, and count the number of requests.

To use Tracing Analysis, first activate the Tracing Analysis service. Tracing Analysis depends on Log Service and the Resource Access Management (RAM) service. Therefore, activate both services and authorize Tracing Analysis to read and write respective Log Service data.

For more information about how to activate related services and authorize permissions, see Activate Related Services and Authorize Permissions.

1

Enable Tracing Analysis for the ASM Instance

ASM integrates the Alibaba Cloud Tracing Analysis service. The following sub sections describe how to enable Tracing Analysis while creating a new ASM instance as well as for an existing ASM instance.

Enable Tracing Analysis When Creating an ASM Instance

While creating an ASM instance, select Enable Tracing Analysis to enable the ASM tracing analysis capability. Also, set the traffic percentage for tracing, which ranges from 0.01 to 100.00.

Note: To select this option, first activate the Alibaba Cloud Tracing Analysis service.

2

Enable Tracing Analysis for an Existing ASM Instance or Adjust the Traffic Percentage for Tracing

If you did not select Enable OPA Plug-in when creating an ASM instance, use the following method to enable the OPA plug-in to enable the tracing feature for ASM instances or adjust the traffic percentage for tracing.

  • Log on to the ASM console and click ASM Instance in the left-side navigation pane. On the Details page of the ASM instance, click Feature Settings in the upper-right corner.

3

  • In the window that appears, select Enable OPA Plug-in. After selecting this option, check whether the Tracing Analysis service is active.

Deploy the Sample Application

Deploy the application to an ASM instance. View the productpage service implemented using Python in the example. Note that this application uses the OpenTracing library to extract required headers from the HTTP request.

def getForwardHeaders(request):
    headers = {}

    # x-b3-*** headers can be populated using the opentracing span
    span = get_current_span()
    carrier = {}
    tracer.inject(
        span_context=span.context,
        format=Format.HTTP_HEADERS,
        carrier=carrier)

    headers.update(carrier)

    # ...

    incoming_headers = ['x-request-id']

    # ...

    for ihdr in incoming_headers:
        val = request.headers.get(ihdr)
        if val is not None:
            headers[ihdr] = val

    return headers

View the Reviews service implemented using Java.

@GET
@Path("/reviews/{productId}")
public Response bookReviewsById(@PathParam("productId") int productId,
                            @HeaderParam("end-user") String user,
                            @HeaderParam("x-request-id") String xreq,
                            @HeaderParam("x-b3-traceid") String xtraceid,
                            @HeaderParam("x-b3-spanid") String xspanid,
                            @HeaderParam("x-b3-parentspanid") String xparentspanid,
                            @HeaderParam("x-b3-sampled") String xsampled,
                            @HeaderParam("x-b3-flags") String xflags,
                            @HeaderParam("x-ot-span-context") String xotspan) {

  if (ratings_enabled) {
    JsonObject ratingsResponse = getRatings(Integer.toString(productId), user, xreq, xtraceid, xspanid, xparentspanid, xsampled, xflags, xotspan);

Access the Sample Application

In the address bar of the browser, enter http://{IP address of the ingress gateway service}/productpage and press Enter. The following page appears. Refresh the page to achieve the effect of multiple visits.

4

View the Application List

The Application List page displays the key metrics of all monitored applications, including the health score, number of requests today, and number of errors today. Customize tags for applications and filter applications by tag.

Complete the following steps to go to the Application List page:

  • Log on to the Tracing Analysis console.
  • In the left-side navigation pane, click Application List, and select the target region on the top of the Application List page, .

5

View Application Details

The Application Details page displays the key performance metrics, trace topology, and traces of an application on deployed servers.

  • Log on to the Tracing Analysis console.
  • In the left-side navigation pane, click Application List. On the Application List page, select a region on the top and click an application name.
  • In the left-side navigation pane, click Application Details. In the server list pane, click All or a single server. Click the Overview tab to view the trace topology and key performance metrics. On the Application Details page, the Trace tab displays the top-100 most time-consuming traces of the application on the selected server.

6

View the Trace Waterfall Chart

  • On the Trace tab, click TraceID to open the Trace page in a new window and view the waterfall chart of the trace.
  • On the Trace page, view information about the trace, including the log generation time, status, IP address or server name, service name, and timeline.

Note: Whether an IP address or server name is displayed for the IP Address field depends on the display configuration on the Application Settings page. For more information, see Manage Applications and Tags.

7

Move the pointer over a service name to view information about the service, including the duration, start time, tag, and log event.

For more information about other operations, see Tracing Analysis documentation.

8

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