● Covered by 1 source · 2 reportsMedium impact2 neutral
Cloudflare Unifies Observability Platform with Traces and Expanded Features
Key points
- Cloudflare Traces launched in open beta for end-to-end request tracing.
- Eight major updates unify logs, traces, analytics, alerts, and dashboards.
- New features include a unified SQL API and custom alerts/dashboards.
- A single pricing model for observability data was introduced.
- Traces allow visibility into security rules, transformations, and Worker execution.
Unified Observability Platform
Cloudflare announced eight significant updates to its observability platform, integrating logs, traces, analytics, alerts, dashboards, and data exporting into a single system. This consolidation aims to simplify the process of identifying and resolving issues by providing a unified view of data across various Cloudflare products.
The updates include a single location for exploring logs from across Cloudflare, a unified SQL API for querying Cloudflare data, and a single pricing model for observability data ingested and stored within the platform. Custom alerts and dashboards can now be built using observability data, and all domain analytics are available in one place with 30 days of data retention. Logpush, for data export, is now available on self-serve plans.
Introducing Cloudflare Traces
As part of these updates, Cloudflare introduced Traces in open beta, extending automatic request tracing beyond Workers to cover the entire request path within its platform. This feature allows users to follow requests from the Cloudflare edge to their origin, providing detailed visibility into how traffic is processed.
Traces capture supported platform operations in a request-level timeline without additional setup. Users can control which requests are traced by setting a baseline sampling rate and using Trace Rules to override it for specific traffic. The system supports end-to-end trace context propagation, accepting and forwarding W3C traceparent headers.
Detailed Request Visibility
With Cloudflare Traces, users can observe various stages of request processing, including security rules, transformations, cache decisions, routing, and Worker execution. This detailed insight helps in understanding the behavior of applications and diagnosing issues that might span multiple Cloudflare services or the origin.
Traces can be investigated directly within the Cloudflare dashboard, where users can view request timelines and span details. Additionally, traces can be exported using OpenTelemetry to any destination with a compatible Open Telemetry Protocol (OTLP) endpoint, facilitating integration with existing observability stacks.
Simplifying Troubleshooting
The integration of various observability signals into a single platform addresses the challenge of troubleshooting issues that require data from multiple Cloudflare products. Previously, investigating problems like spikes in 5xx responses necessitated knowing which product owned each signal and how to query it individually. The new unified platform aims to streamline this process.
By providing a comprehensive and integrated view, Cloudflare intends to make its platform the most observable part of a user's stack, reflecting how applications behave and offering the necessary context for effective issue resolution.
✨ This summary was generated by AI from the outlets' reporting listed below. It is not independently verified and may contain errors — check the original sources. How BrevFeed works →
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How outlets covered it
Cloudflare introduced Traces in open beta, extending automatic request tracing beyond Workers to cover the entire request path within its platform. This new feature allows users to observe security rules, transformations, cache decisions, routing, and Worker execution, providing detailed visibility into how traffic is processed.
Cloudflare introduced eight updates to its observability platform, integrating logs, traces, analytics, alerts, dashboards, and data exporting into a single system. This aims to simplify troubleshooting by providing a unified view of data across Cloudflare products and offering more predictable pricing.