While reviewing APM for a grants portal Function, a developer confuses terminology. What is the difference between a trace and a span?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
A trace is the whole journey map; each span is one labeled stopwatch on that map. Metrics and log lines are different kinds of evidence.
Full Explanation
In APM and Functions language, a trace is the full request flow through the distributed system—a tree of related spans. A span is one named operation with a start time and duration. The default Functions span is the invocation; custom spans add nodes on that tree. Traces are not single metric points or log lines, and they do not replace Monitoring namespaces or Logging log groups.