AWS X-Ray is an application performance management service that empowers developers to conduct performance analysis and debug applications in the AWS console.
AWS X-Ray is an important component in the AWS serverless stack that enables developers to conduct performance analysis and debug distributed microservice-based applications.
X-Ray consolidates information about an application’s architecture into a Service Map, which also includes connections to components and a dependency tree. It enables easier root cause analysis by highlighting the part of the application that is problematic, offering request details such as latency, HTTP response status, and the number of errors.
AWS X-Ray can trace requests made to applications that span multiple AWS accounts, AWS Regions, and Availability Zones, offering true end-to-end visibility.
X-Ray Workflow
AWS X-Ray operates on an intuitive workflow that progresses as follows:
Collect traces: X-Ray collects data from each underlying service of an application. To form an end-to-end trace, it adds an HTTP header to requests that do not already have one and passes the header along to additional tiers of request handlers.
Record Traces: AWS X-Ray complies all the gathered data into traces which span from the beginning of your application workflow to the end.
View Service Map: X-Ray creates a map of services used by the application using the trace data. This provides a visual representation of the connections between services in the application and aggregated data for each service.
Analyze Issues: After all the traces are collected and formatted into a Service map, developers are able to drill down into the service to find exactly where and what error is taking place. Developers will be able to identify performance bottlenecks, detect segments of high latency and see the numbers of occurring errors.
AWS X-Ray Features:
The features of AWS X-Ray are:
Simple Setup: It can be used with various applications running on Amazon EC2, Amazon ECS (Amazon EC2 Container Service), AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS Lamda. The process to get started with AWS X-Ray is very easy. We just have to integrate our application with X-Ray SDK and install the X-Ray. With Amazon EBS (Amazon Elastic Beanstalk) we just have to integrate the X-Ray SDK with our application as an X-Ray agent is pre-installed on Amazon EBS.
End-to-end tracing: It provides an end-to-end view of requests made to our application. It gives you an application-driven view of requests flowing through your application by accumulating the data gathered from individual services in your application into a single unit called a trace.
Service Map: It creates a map of services utilized by our application with trace data that we can use to identify errors and issues.
Server and Client-side latency detection: X-Ray allows us to visually detect node and edge latency distribution directly from the service map. With this, we can quickly identify issues affecting our application and end-user. It helps us to understand the performance of the application.
Data annotation and filtering: AWS X-Ray allows you to add annotations to data emitted from specific components or services in your application.
Console and programmatic access: We can use X-Ray with AWS Management Console, AWS CLI, AWS SDKs. The X-Ray API enables us to programmatically access the service so we can easily export trace data.
Security: It is integrated with AWS IAM (AWS Identity and Access Management) so that we can control which users and resources have permission to access our traces.
AWS X-Ray Benefits:
Review request behavior: X-ray traces user requests as they travel through your entire application. We are able to get an end-to-end view of how our application is proceeding as this request aggregates the data generated by various services and resources in your application.
Ready to use with AWS: It works with Amazon EC2, EC2 Container Service, Lambda, and Elastic Beanstalk.
Detect application issues: with an X-ray, you can obtain insights into how your application is performing and find root causes for any issues. With X-ray’s tracing feature we can find where are the issues causing performance dips in your application.
Improve application performance: X-ray helps you identify performance bottlenecks. The service map feature helps you see the relationship between resources and services in your application. You can look down into specific services and paths that are affecting application performance by detecting where high latencies are occurring.
AWS X-Ray Pricing:
In AWS X-Ray there are no upfront fees or commitments. We only pay for what we use. The topmost size of a trace is 500 KB. Trace data is stored for 30 days from the time it is recorded at no additional cost.
Free Tier
The first initial 100,000 traces recorded every month are free.
The first initial 1,000,000 traces received or scanned every month are free
Additional Charges
After Free Trial, traces recorded cost $5 for every 1,000,000 transactions
After Free Trial, traces received or scanned only cost $0.50 for every 1,000,000 transactions.
Happy Learning !!
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