For an application that spans multiple services, which AWS service is BEST suited when you want to visualize and analyze (distributed tracing) which path a request takes and where latency or errors occur?

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Select an answer
CorrectD

Explanation

Question Overview

A question about choosing the service that visualizes latency and errors with distributed tracing.

Requirements to satisfy
  • 1「spans multiple services」Tracing of a distributed system = X-Ray
  • 2「where latency or errors occur」Identifying bottlenecks per segment
  • 3「visualize and analyze」Visualization of traces = X-Ray
Per-option explanation
AIncorrect

Amazon CloudWatch

Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring service that collects and monitors metrics (numeric data such as CPU utilization, request counts, and error rates) and logs (text records output by applications or the OS), and raises alarms when thresholds are exceeded.

In other words, what CloudWatch observes is the current state of individual resources. By contrast, what X-Ray observes is the processing path: in what order one request passes through multiple services, how many milliseconds each segment takes, and where an error occurred. The requirement here is path visualization (distributed tracing), which is not the role of CloudWatch, so it is incorrect.

BIncorrect

AWS CloudTrail

AWS CloudTrail is an audit service that records the operation history of 'who called which AWS API and when'.

What it records is operations against the account, and it does not track the path or latency of requests inside an application, so it is incorrect.

CIncorrect

AWS Config

AWS Config is a service that records resource configuration changes and evaluates compliance with rules.

What it tracks is configuration changes, and it is not distributed tracing that visualizes the latency or error locations of requests, so it is incorrect.

DCorrect

AWS X-Ray

Correct. AWS X-Ray is a distributed tracing service that tracks the flow of requests spanning multiple services and visualizes the time spent in each segment and the locations of errors. It is useful for identifying bottlenecks and debugging microservices and serverless architectures.

Key Takeaway

'Distributed tracing', 'visualizing the request path', and 'locating latency and errors' point to AWS X-Ray. Distinguish it from CloudWatch (metrics/logs monitoring), CloudTrail (recording API operations), and Config (tracking configuration changes) by 'what you follow'.

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