Explore service dependencies with Service Maps

Service Maps in the Traces app help you understand how services communicate with each other over a selected time window. Instead of showing the execution path of a single trace, Service Maps summarize service-to-service relationships across many traces, making it easier to identify dependencies, investigate performance issues, and save useful views for repeat analysis.

Tip

Watch this product demo tour in full screen to quickly explore the main UI elements and learn what actions you can take within the app. This guided overview allows you to explore the app’s capabilities and understand its features without needing to install it first.

Business use cases Copied

Use Service Maps when you need a quick view of how services are connected in a real environment. For example, they can help you:

• Understand which services are involved in a business transaction, such as checkout, login, or payment processing.
• Investigate slow response times by checking which downstream service is adding latency.
• Troubleshoot failures by seeing whether errors are coming from the main service or one of its dependencies.
• Save a useful map for recurring tasks, such as monitoring a critical customer-facing service during incidents.
• Share the same saved view with teammates so everyone starts from the same context during troubleshooting.

Prerequisites Copied

Before using Service Maps, make sure that:

• Your services are instrumented and sending trace data to ITRS Analytics.
• The services you want to explore have trace activity in the selected time window.
• You know at least one service to use as a seed service. Optionally, you can also narrow the map with a service.namespace value.
• You have access to the Traces app. Access to saved maps depends on whether a map is private, shared, or public.

Open Service Maps Copied

In the Traces app, open Service Maps to view the My Service Maps page.

Tip

To learn more about the Traces app and distributed tracing concepts, refer to About the Traces app and Observability through distributed tracing.

This page lists your saved maps as cards. Depending on the information available, each card can show the map name, last updated details, description, seed services, and an access indicator. Recently created maps can also display a New badge.

Create a service map Copied

Use Create New Service Map to start a new map. The dropdown next to the button also provides options to import a map from a JSON file or create one from a template.

Create from scratch Copied

1. Click Create New Service Map.

2. In the Edit configuration panel, select one or more seed services in service.name.

3. Optionally, set service.namespace to scope all selected seed services to a specific namespace.

4. Enter a Name for the map.

5. Optionally, add a Description.

6. Click Save.

   If no seed service is selected yet, the graph area displays a prompt asking you to select a service to get started.

Create from template Copied

Templates provide a quick starting point for common service-map patterns.

1. Open the Create New Service Map dropdown.
2. Click Create from template.
3. On the Service Map Templates page, search for a suitable template if needed.
4. Click Use template.
5. Review the pre-filled configuration, update it if necessary, and then click Save.

Import from file Copied

You can import a previously exported service map configuration in JSON format.

1. Open the Create New Service Map dropdown.
2. Click Import from file.
3. Select a valid .json file.

If the file is valid, the Service Map is saved and added to My Service Maps. If the selected file is not valid JSON, the import is rejected.

Configure a service map Copied

When you create or edit a map, use the Edit configuration panel to define what the graph should show.

Expand table

To update an existing map:

1. Open the saved map.
2. Click Edit configuration.
3. Update the seed services, namespace, name, or description as needed.
4. Click Save to apply your changes.
5. Click Cancel to close the editor without saving your changes.

Use the service map graph Copied

After you save or open a map, the graph view becomes the main workspace for exploration.

Understand the graph Copied

• Nodes represent services.
• Edges represent service-to-service dependencies.
• Services with errors are visually highlighted to help you spot failing areas more quickly.
• If the graph is too large to render, narrow the time range or use different seed services.

Work with the time window Copied

Use the time selector to choose a fixed relative time window for the map.

Service Maps are live views that update automatically while they are open. Routine metric updates do not require manual refresh, so there is no separate force-refresh button on the map view.

While the map is open, latency, span counts, error counts, and related graph metrics refresh automatically. During these routine updates, the map stays in place so you can continue working without the view unexpectedly moving or resetting.

Explore nodes and dependencies Copied

Click a service node to open its details panel. From this panel, you can review information such as:

• Service name and namespace
• Instance count
• Inbound call metrics, including p95 latency, call count, and error count
• Emitted span metrics, including p95 latency, span count, and error count
• Outgoing services and their call volume

You can also use the actions in the node details panel:

• Focus here isolates the selected service and its downstream view.
• View traces opens the Traces page with filters for the selected service.
• View errors opens the Traces page with filters that focus on error traces for the selected service when errors are present.

Interact with the graph Copied

Use the graph to visually follow how services are connected:

• Hover over a service node to highlight its connected services and make unrelated services less prominent.
• Click a service node to select it and open its details panel.
• Click another node, click an empty part of the graph, or press Esc to clear the current selection.
• During live updates, the selected service remains selected when it is still present in the graph. If that service is no longer available in the current view, the selection is cleared automatically.

Focus on part of the graph Copied

Use Focus here when you want to isolate one service and its downstream relationships.

In focused view, the graph still updates automatically as new data arrives. This is useful when you want to concentrate on one part of a larger service topology during troubleshooting.

To return to the full map, click Reset map. You can also use Esc to exit the focused view.

Understand graph updates Copied

While a Service Map stays open, metrics continue to refresh automatically. This helps you observe how latency, span counts, and errors change over time without recreating the map.

During normal live updates, the current view stays stable so you can continue working in the same context. When the graph needs to be re-framed, such as when the visible topology changes or when you move into or out of a focused view, the UI shows a progress bar while the map updates.

The graph is re-laid out only when the structure of the map changes, such as when services appear or disappear from the current view. In those cases, the map is fitted to the updated view again. This helps reduce unnecessary movement while still keeping the graph readable when the topology changes.

Manage saved maps Copied

Open any saved map from My Service Maps. In the map view, use the settings menu to manage the saved configuration.

Manage access Copied

Use Manage access to control who can discover or view a map:

• Make public maps are discoverable by other users. They are read-only unless a user has been granted write permissions.
• Private maps are visible only to the owner by default.
• Shared private maps can be opened by other users if they have the direct link, but those users cannot edit the map.

Saved map cards also show an access indicator when applicable, such as a Public label or a sharing icon.

Export and import Copied

Use Export from the saved map settings menu to download the current configuration as a .json file. You can later re-import this file from the Create New Service Map menu.

Delete a map Copied

Use Delete from the saved map settings menu to permanently remove a Service Map. This action cannot be undone.

Examples Copied

The following examples show how Service Maps can support common Traces workflows:

Review checkout dependencies Copied

Create a map with checkout-service as the seed service to understand which downstream services support the checkout flow, such as payment, inventory, or notification services. Use the graph to identify which dependency is contributing most to latency.

Investigate an error-prone service Copied

Open a Service Map for a service that is generating failures, select the highlighted node, and then click View errors. This takes you directly to the Traces view with filters applied so that you can move from a service-level problem to individual failing traces.

Share a reusable troubleshooting view Copied

Create and save a Service Map for a critical business service, such as an API gateway or payment workflow, and make it Public or Shared. This gives other users a consistent starting point for investigating the same part of the system.