To get the most out of this book
The book is intended for a wide range of audiences interested in solving the observability challenges in complex distributed systems. Some familiarity with the existing monitoring tools, such as metrics, is useful, but not required. Most code examples are written in Java, so a basic level of reading Java code is required.
The included exercises make heavy use of Docker and docker-compose to bring up various third-party dependencies, such as MySQL and Elasticsearch databases, Kafka and Zookeeper, and various observability tools like Jaeger, Kibana, Grafana, and Prometheus. A working installation of Docker is required to run most of the examples.
I strongly advise you to not only try running and playing with the provided examples, but also to try adopting them to your own applications and use cases. I have seen time and again how engineers find silly mistakes and inefficiencies simply by looking at a sample trace from their application. If is often surprising how much more visibility into the system behavior is provided by tracing. If this is your first time dealing with this technology, then instrumenting your own application, instead of running the provided abstract examples, is the most effective way to learn and appreciate tracing.
Download the example code files
You can download the example code files for this book from your account at http://www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packt.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.
You can download the code files by following these steps:
- Log in or register at http://www.packt.com.
- Select the SUPPORT tab.
- Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
- Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the on-screen instructions.
Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:
- WinRAR / 7-Zip for Windows
- Zipeg / iZip / UnRarX for Mac
- 7-Zip / PeaZip for Linux
The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Mastering-Distributed-Tracing. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.
We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!
Download the color images
We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/9781788628464_ColorImages.pdf.
Conventions used
There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.
CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. For example; "Mount the downloaded WebStorm-10*.dmg disk image file as another disk in your system."
A block of code is set as follows:
type SpanContext struct {
traceID TraceID
spanID SpanID
flags byte
baggage map[string]string
debugID string
}When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
type SpanContext struct {
traceID TraceID
spanID SpanID
flags byte
baggage map[string]string
debugID string
}
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
$ go run ./exercise1/hello.go Listening on http://localhost:8080/
Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, also appear in the text like this. For example: "Select System info from the Administration panel."
Note
Warnings or important notes appear like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
