Distributed tracing allows tracking of a specific flow as it progresses throughout microservices systems. With distributed tracing, developers can connect the dots and gain visibility and understanding of a certain flow. This saves time when building and operating modern applications.
However, not all workflows and architectures support distributed tracing mechanisms. This is the case especially when these mechanisms were built as creative and customized solutions to unique situations. In such cases, it can be challenging to implement the context propagation mechanism, which is responsible for gathering the metadata that enables building the distributed tracing flow.