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eOverview

Apache HTrace is a tracing framework intended for use with distributed systems written in java. Since version 3.1.3, Apache CXF fully supports integration with Apache HTrace, both on client side and server side. This section gives a complete overview on how distributed tracing support is supported in JAX-RS applications built on top of Apache CXF.

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Distributed tracing is additional instrumentation layer on top of new or existing applications. In terms of distributed tracing, span represents a basic unit of work. For example, executing database query is a span. Spans are identified by a unique 64-bit ID for the span and another 64128-bit ID for the trace the span is a part of. Spans also have other data, such as descriptions, timelines, key-value annotations, the ID of the span that caused them (parent), and process/tracer ID’s (normally IP address and process name). Spans are started and stopped, and they keep track of their timing information. Once span is created, it should be stopped at some point in the future. In turn, trace is a set of spans forming a tree-like structure. For example, if you are running a JAX-RS service, a trace might be formed by a PUT request.

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