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Microservices have become mainstream in the enterprise. This proliferation of microservices applications generates new problems, which requires a new approach to managing problems. A microservice is a small, independently deployable, and independently scalable software service that is designed to encapsulate a specific semantic function in the larger applicationl. This article explores several approaches to deploying tools to debug microservices applications on a Kubernetes platform like Red Hat OpenShift, includingOpenTracing, Squash, Telepresence, and creating a Squash Operator in Red Hat Ansible Automation. Importantly, identifying the root cause of issues in microservices application can have a direct business impact. In fact, 40%2to 90%3of total software costs of are typically incurred after launch.

Rookout, a startup that offers debugging tools for applications that run on modern container and serverless platforms, is launching a new feature today that brings the equivalent of breakpoints to Kubernetes. To get around this, developers tend to go for a more indirect way of diagnosing issues and debugging their apps running on Kubernetes. That mostly means logging and distributed tracing, both of which have spawned their own ecosystems of open-source projects and startups.