Distributed tracing is a method of tracking requests as they propagate through a distributed system. A trace is built from spans. Each span represents an interaction, like an HTTP request, a DB query, a serverless function invocation, etc. A trace is essentially a tree of spans. Based on the collected span data, a distributed tracing platform can capture all the interactions between the different architectural components and tie them together with a trace ID.

Testing web applications from the user interface (UI) is a must for every customer-facing product, from e-commerce portals to cyber security dashboards. Often, a broken or inefficient UI experience can make or break whether end users adopt a product quickly and trouble-free. This is why developers have embraced UI testing as a critical part of their development process.