Logs and Tracing

Abstract

In the previous chapter, we worked with a few of the observability features offered by Istio. We were able to capture application metrics, but metrics are just one dimension of observability. Observability is about gathering data in all possible dimensions. During application outages, looking at various aspects of observability helps developers understand the application behavior in order to perform incident analysis. There are many tools that can help achieve this objective. However, it is important to know the cost it takes to add a behavior. The operations team should be able to configure tools of their choice without needing developers. In this chapter, we will see how seamlessly we can capture additional behaviors such as request tracing and application logs. We will also work with the Istio plug-and-play model that provides a uniform mechanism for capturing additional application behavior.