Troubleshoot microservices issues faster with Differential Diagnosis (DDx)

Chronosphere is excited to introduce Differential Diagnosis (DDx) for Traces—a powerful new capability that helps teams identify the root cause of issues more quickly. DDx automatically surfaces critical insights from trace data and provides an intuitive, guided workflow to help you quickly identify the root cause of service slowness or failure – no tribal knowledge about the system architecture or service design required.

You get an alert – sometimes in the middle of the night. Something is slow, or down completely. You jump into your tracing tool. Errors appear upstream and downstream, but context is missing. 

Your stress level rises. You’re responsible for a specific service (or a small group of services), but the issue involves services and teams you don’t interact with day-to-day. The system and services are so complex, it’s impossible for any one person to hold all the information in their head.  

You ask yourself: Do I waste time trying to figure things out, or escalate it and wait?  

This frustrating scenario plays out again and again because: 

• Modern systems are complex. Microservices are designed for isolation, but they often create hidden dependencies that make root cause analysis challenging.
• There’s too much noise, not enough signal. Observability tools collect vast amounts of telemetry, but identifying what matters takes time and context.
• Most tracing tools are hard to use. They require deep system familiarity and expert-level query skills—often limiting troubleshooting to just a few team members.

DDx for Traces transforms the troubleshooting process. It eliminates the guesswork and cognitive overload by:  

• Automatically analyzing all relevant spans and span dimensions in a trace.
• Surfacing changes that correlate with performance issues.
• Providing guided troubleshooting —so you can quickly test and validate hypotheses to get to the root cause faster, without needing prior expertise.

Whether you’re responding to an alert in the middle of the night or navigating unfamiliar parts of the system, DDx gives you the confidence to troubleshoot effectively—no tribal knowledge required.

Whether you’re responding to an alert in the middle of the night or navigating unfamiliar parts of the system, DDx gives you the confidence to troubleshoot effectively—no tribal knowledge required.

Abstracts away system complexity

DDx analyzes trace data in context and highlights what changed. Troubleshoot without needing full-system knowledge or memorizing intricate dependencies.

Accelerates troubleshooting with guided investigation

DDx ranks the likely causes of latency or failure, enabling rapid hypothesis testing. Its guided approach ensures a consistent, repeatable process—leading to faster resolution and less backtracking.

Benefits all skill levels

If you’re new to the system or the observability stack, you can troubleshoot confidently without waiting on someone who “just knows.”

If you’re an expert, DDx accelerates the manual steps you’d take anyway—helping you get answers faster and stay focused on higher-impact work.

Key features of DDx for Traces:

• One-Click Correlation Analysis: When a suspicious trend or pattern is observed, DDx automatically analyzes all spans and span dimensions, highlighting key dimensions that are likely contributing to the issue.
• Intuitive, Insight-Driven UI: The point-and-click, queryless workflow helps you to rapidly test hypotheses and identify the root cause of issues faster – without relying on tribal knowledge.
• Customizable investigations: Set up “Top Tags” for default DDx analysis or select individual tags to tailor your analysis based on the current issue.
• Available Out-Of-The-Box – All Chronosphere Distributed Tracing customers can immediately start using DDx – no configuration or setup is required.

Troubleshooting in modern systems is inherently difficult. DDx for Traces is built to reduce that burden. By automatically surfacing statistically significant changes that correlate with performance issues, and providing a queryless workflow to rapidly test hypotheses, DDx empowers every team member to troubleshoot like an expert – regardless of their level of tribal knowledge about the system.

• What is being launched today?

Chronosphere is launching Differential Diagnosis (DDx) for Traces—a powerful new capability that helps teams identify the root cause of service slowness or failure faster. DDx automatically analyzes all spans and span dimensions in a trace, highlighting what has changed—no deep system knowledge or query writing is required.

• Who is DDx for Traces for?

DDx for Traces is for any developer or SRE who needs to troubleshoot distributed systems efficiently. It helps users of all experience levels investigate with confidence—without relying on tribal knowledge or needing to escalate to a tracing expert.

• How does DDx for Traces work?

DDx for Traces performs automatic correlation analysis to detect statistically significant changes across trace data. It then presents those insights in a queryless, point-and-click workflow that allows users to test hypotheses and find the root cause quickly.

• Do I need to configure anything to use DDx for Traces?

No setup or configuration is required. DDx is available out-of-the-box to all Chronosphere Distributed Tracing customers.

• How do I start a DDx analysis?

You can initiate a DDx analysis from the DDx tab, the Statistics tab, or from a single span on the Trace Details page in the Chronosphere UI.

• I’m not yet using Chronosphere. How do I get started?

To use DDx, start by sending your distributed traces to Chronosphere. To learn more or get started, read about our Distributed Tracing capability or contact our team.