// Module included in the following assemblies:
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// assembly-distributed-tracing.adoc

[id='con-overview-opentracing-jaeger-{context}']
= Overview of OpenTracing and Jaeger

Strimzi uses the OpenTracing and Jaeger projects.

OpenTracing is an API specification that is independent from the tracing or monitoring system.

* The OpenTracing APIs are used to _instrument_ application code

* Instrumented applications generate _traces_ for individual transactions across the distributed system

* Traces are composed of _spans_ that define specific units of work over time

Jaeger is a tracing system for microservices-based distributed systems.

* Jaeger implements the OpenTracing APIs and provides client libraries for instrumentation

* The Jaeger user interface allows you to query, filter, and analyze trace data

image:image_con-overview-distributed-tracing.png[The Jaeger user interface showing a simple query]

.Additional resources

* {OpenTracingHome}

* {JaegerHome}
