Observability Injection: Distributed Tracing via Sidecars
Overview
What this challenge is about.
Configure Envoy sidecars for distributed tracing across 26 services, then add in-process spans to the 6 fastest-changing ones to earn your verifiable certificate.
The scenario
The logistics platform (around 4,000 bookings/day, SLA-sensitive carrier integrations) loses around 8 engineering-hours per week per incident to 'where did the latency go?' — observability is now an SLA risk.
The Brief
What you'll do, and what you'll demonstrate.
Use service-mesh-injected sidecars to deliver baseline distributed tracing across 26 services without code changes, and identify the 6 services that warrant in-process span instrumentation.
Earning criteria — what you'll demonstrate
- Configure Envoy + Istio to emit OpenTelemetry-compatible spans
- Reason about W3C tracecontext propagation through mixed-stack services
- Decide where in-process spans add value beyond sidecar-injected spans
- Plan observability investment based on change frequency, not service count
Program Fit
Where this fits in your program.
Sharpens the same skills your degree expects you to demonstrate.
Aligned coursework coming soon.
Skills
Skills you'll demonstrate.
Each one shows up on your verified credential.
- Distributed Tracing
Apply distributed tracing to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Opentelemetry
Apply opentelemetry to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Envoy
Apply envoy to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Service Mesh
Apply service mesh to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Observability
Apply observability to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
- Istio
Apply istio to solve real industry problems and demonstrate production-level capability.
Careers
Career paths this challenge builds toward
Completing this challenge demonstrates skills that transfer directly to these roles: