Distributed Tracing is a divisive topic. Once the doyen of every KubeCon, the technology was expected to revolutionize observability.
Fast forward five years, and the hype has subsided somewhat. There's a lot more talk about the pain, and adoption is moderate. Meanwhile, there continues to be steady activity around expanding and standardizing the technology — Open Telemetry (based on OpenTracing) is the 2nd largest CNCF project after Kubernetes. So, what is the deal with Distributed Tracing? Should one implement it right away or wait and watch? In this article, let's explore Distributed Tracing in depth: