Why is stripping trace context at a gateway harmful even though it reduces header size?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Trace context is the thread that stitches upstream and downstream spans together. Strip it at a gateway, and you lose the ability to follow a request across that boundary. You're left with disconnected trace fragments instead of one end-to-end view.
Full Explanation
Stripping trace context at a gateway is harmful because trace context is what makes a distributed trace distributed. Removing it at a boundary creates two disconnected halves: upstream spans can no longer be linked to downstream spans, so requests can no longer be followed across the gateway. That boundary is typically the point where cross-team analysis matters most. The option saying the gateway itself disappears from the service map is incorrect because the gateway continues to be monitored; it is the correlation across it that is lost. The option saying exporters cannot reach the ingestion endpoint is incorrect because connectivity to the ingestion endpoint is independent of header content. The option saying storage consumed by each trace increases is incorrect because storage is not the issue; the fragments may even be smaller. For the exam, treat context headers as required at every hop.