Use a console
Use a console if you want a graphical user interface (GUI) that requires minimal coding. Users that are new to X-Ray can get started quickly using pre-built visualizations, and performing basic tasks. You can do the following directly from the console:
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Enable X-Ray.
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View high-level summaries of your application's performance.
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Check the health status of your applications.
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Identify high-level errors.
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View basic trace summaries.
You can use either the Amazon CloudWatch console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/cloudwatch/
Use the Amazon CloudWatch console
The CloudWatch console includes new X-Ray functionality that is redesigned from the X-Ray console to make it easier to use. If you use the CloudWatch console, you can view CloudWatch logs and metrics along with X-Ray trace data. Use the CloudWatch console to view and analyze data including the following:
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X-Ray traces – View, analyze and filter traces associated with your application as it serves a request. Use these traces to find high latencies, debug errors, and optimize your application workflow. View a trace map and service map to see visual representations of your application workflow.
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Logs – View, analyze and filter logs that your application produces. Use logs to troubleshoot errors and set up monitoring based on specific log values.
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Metrics – Measure and monitor your application performance using metrics that your resources emit or create your own metrics. View these metrics in graphs and charts.
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Monitoring networks and infrastructure – Monitor major networks for outages and the health and performance of your infrastructure including containerized applications, other Amazon services, and clients.
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All of the functionality from the X-Ray console listed in the following Use the X-Ray console section.
For more information about the CloudWatch console, see Getting started with Amazon CloudWatch.
Login the Amazon CloudWatch console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/cloudwatch/
Use the X-Ray console
The X-Ray console offers distributed tracing for application requests. Use the X-Ray console if you want a simpler console experience or don’t want to update your application code. Amazon is no longer developing the X-Ray console. The X-Ray console contains the following features for instrumented applications:
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Insights – Automatically detect anomalies in your application’s performance and find the underlying causes. Insights are included in the CloudWatch console under Insights. For more information, see the Use X-Ray Insights in Use the X-Ray console.
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Service map – View a graphical structure of your application and its connections with clients, resources, services, and dependencies.
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Traces – See an overview of traces that are generated by your application as it serves a request. Use trace data to understand how your application performs against basic metrics including HTTP response and response time.
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Analytics – Interpret, explore and analyze trace data using graphs for response time distribution.
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Configuration – Create customized traces to change the default configurations for the following:
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Sampling – Create a rule that defines how often to sample your application for trace information. For more information, see Configure sampling rules in Use the X-Ray console .
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Encryption – Encrypt data at rest using a key that you can audit or disable using Amazon Key Management Service.
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Groups – Use a filter expression to define a group of traces with a common feature such as the name of a url or a response time. For more information, see Configure groups.
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Login the X-Ray console at https://console.amazonaws.cn/xray/home
Explore the X-Ray console
Use the X-Ray console to view a map of services and associated traces for requests that your applications serve, and to configure groups and sampling rules which affect how traces are sent to X-Ray.
Note
The X-Ray Service map and CloudWatch ServiceLens map have been combined into the X-Ray trace
map within the Amazon CloudWatch console. Open the CloudWatch
console
CloudWatch now includes Application Signals, which can discover and monitor your application services, clients, Synthetics canaries, and service dependencies. Use Application Signals to see a list or visual map of your services, view health metrics based on your service level objectives (SLOs), and drill down to see correlated X-Ray traces for more detailed troubleshooting.
The primary X-Ray console page is the trace map, which is a visual representation of the JSON service graph that X-Ray generates from the trace data generated by your applications. The map consists of service nodes for each application in your account that serves requests, upstream client nodes that represent the origins of the requests, and downstream service nodes that represent web services and resources used by an application while processing a request. There are additional pages for viewing traces and trace details, and configuring groups and sampling rules.
View the console experience for X-Ray and compare with the CloudWatch console in the following sections.