Over HTTP we have it easy: there’s a handy spot to stick trace & span IDs to propagate our trace context from service to service. gRPC has metadata, which is similar.
Then there’s stuff like AWS Kinesis, which doesn’t give you a place for metadata. What do you do then?
me: you put the trace context as part of the data.
What if you’re not allowed to modify the data format? Then it gets scary. Then you get three-part articles on how to jam trace context into an existing piece of metadata while somehow maintaining the existing behavior.
https://www.catchpoint.com/blog/how-to-propagate-opentelemetry-trace-headers-over-aws-kinesis-part-1
Thanks to o11y.news for this link. It makes me grateful for traceparent.
