​
Overview

The service map is a powerful visualization tool in Metoro that displays connections between services in your cluster. Built on trace data, it provides insights into:
  • Service-to-service communication within your cluster
  • External client requests entering your cluster
  • Outbound requests from your services to external dependencies

​
How It Works

The service map is dynamically generated from trace data by:
  1. Analyzing each request’s client and server containers
  2. Identifying service boundaries
  3. Creating visual connections between communicating services
  4. Detecting external traffic patterns
Service map showing connections between services

​
Connection Types

​
Internal Connections

Lines between services represent internal cluster communication:
  • Green lines indicate healthy connections
  • Red lines indicate errors (5xx responses or traced errors)
  • Line thickness represents traffic volume

​
External Traffic

The service map identifies two types of external traffic:
  1. External Clients:
  • Detected when only server-side traces exist
  • Shows incoming traffic from outside the cluster
  • Helps monitor external access patterns
  1. External Services:
  • Identified by analyzing outbound request destinations
  • Groups requests by hostname (e.g., api.stripe.com)
  • Falls back to “Unknown External Service” for unresolvable IPs
Service map showing external connections

​
Interactive Features

​
Connection Details

Mouse over any connection to:
  • View request rate statistics
  • Access underlying traces
  • See error rates and patterns
  • Filter by connection attributes

​
Service Details

Mouse over any service node to see:
  • Incoming request rates
  • Connected services
  • Traffic patterns
  • Service health metrics
Service map interaction details

​
Filtering

​
Namespace Filtering

Filter traffic by namespace: 
# Show requests to services in a namespace
server.namespace = metoro

# Show requests from services in a namespace
client.namespace = metoro

​
Service Filtering

Filter by service names: 
# Show traffic to specific services
server.service.name = api.stripe.com

# Show traffic from specific services
client.service.name = metoro-apiserver

​
Path Filtering

Use regex to filter by HTTP path: 
# Find v1 trace endpoints
v1.traces

​
Use Cases

  1. Dependency Monitoring:
  • Track external service dependencies
  • Monitor third-party API usage
  • Set up alerts for external service issues
  1. Traffic Analysis:
  • Identify communication patterns
  • Debug service connectivity issues
  • Monitor service health
  1. Error Detection:
  • Quickly spot failing connections
  • Investigate error patterns
  • Track error rates across services