---
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title: Configuring Flex Gateway Distributed Tracing in Connected Mode
collection: mulesoft
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/mulesoft/current/en-us/gateway/1.12/flex-conn-tracing-config.md
canonical_url: https://docs.mulesoft.com/gateway/1.12/flex-conn-tracing-config
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content_type: documentation
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description: MuleSoft Documentation Site
release: "1.12"
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---
---
product: Omni Gateway
version: 1.12
---

# Configuring Flex Gateway Distributed Tracing in Connected Mode

> For the full documentation index, see: https://docs.mulesoft.com/llms.txt

OpenTelemetry provides a unified standard for instrumenting, generating, collecting, and exporting
telemetry data across distributed systems. Flex Gateway supports OpenTelemetry, enabling you to
configure the generation of distributed tracing data for all API traffic managed by the gateway.
This integration delivers deep visibility into API request flows, making it easier to analyze system
behavior, troubleshoot issues, and understand interactions between Flex Gateway APIs and external
services.

Tracing enables you to track Flex Gateway API interactions. When multiple systems and services are
involved, distributed tracing tracks API requests as they flow through distributed environments,
providing a comprehensive view of the API’s execution.

With the Anypoint Monitoring Telemetry Exporter, you can send Flex Gateway trace data to third-party
observability and analytics platforms, including Azure Monitor, Splunk HEC, or any
OpenTelemetry-compliant tool. This capability allows you to leverage end-to-end observability,
correlating API traces with data from other systems to build a comprehensive view of your
environment.

## Before You Begin

To use the OpenTelemetry with Flex Gateway, you must be familiar with:

- Distributed tracing concepts, including traces and spans.

  If you’re new to distributed tracing and OpenTelemetry, we recommend starting with
  [What is OpenTelemetry](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/concepts/what-is-opentelemetry/) and
  [Understanding distributed tracing](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/concepts/observability-primer/#understanding-distributed-tracing).

## Export traces from the Anypoint Monitoring Telemetry Exporter

To export traces to third party providers using the Anypoint Monitoring Telemetry Exporter, see
[How to export telemetry data to third-party monitoring systems](https://docs.mulesoft.com/monitoring/telemetry-exporter).

To export traces using the Anypoint Monitoring Telemetry Exporter, first configure the Telemetry
Exporter in Anypoint Monitoring.

## Export Traces to Anypoint Monitoring

Edit and then apply this configuration resource to enable distributed tracing. This configuration
resource applies to all API instances. This example sets sampling to 0% for all traces, and sampling
is configured on a per-API basis using policies.

```yaml
apiVersion: gateway.mulesoft.com/v1beta1
kind: Configuration
metadata:
  name: tracing
  namespace: test-ns
spec:
  tracing:
    provider:
      type: anypoint
      properties:
        timeout: 10s
    sampling:
      client: 0
      random: 0
      overall: 0
    labels:
      - name: c-env-tag
        type: environment
        keyName: FLEX_NAME
        defaultValue: DEFAULT_VAL
      - name: c-header-tag
        type: requestHeader
        keyName: :method
        defaultValue: DEFAULT_METHOD
      - name: c-literal-tag
        type: literal
        defaultValue: the-tag
```

## Export Traces to a gRPC OpenTelemetry Endpoint

To configure OpenTelemetry tracing with a gRPC endpoint in Flex, use the following YAML
configuration as an example:

```yaml
apiVersion: gateway.mulesoft.com/v1beta1
kind: Configuration
metadata:
  name: tracing
  namespace: test-ns
spec:
  tracing:
    provider:
      type: opentelemetry
      properties:
        address: h2://splunk-otel-collector-agent.default.svc.cluster.local:4317
        serviceType: grpc
        serviceName: my-flex-name
        timeout: 10s
        resourceAttributes:
          any-key: any-value
    sampling:
      client: 100
      random: 100
      overall: 100
    labels:
      - name: c-env-tag
        type: environment
        keyName: FLEX_NAME
        defaultValue: DEFAULT_VAL
      - name: c-header-tag
        type: requestHeader
        keyName: :method
        defaultValue: DEFAULT_METHOD
      - name: c-literal-tag
        type: literal
        defaultValue: the-tag
```

## Export Traces to a HTTP OpenTelemetry Endpoint

To configure OpenTelemetry tracing with a HTTP endpoint, use the following YAML configuration as an
example:

```yaml
apiVersion: gateway.mulesoft.com/v1beta1
kind: Configuration
metadata:
  name: tracing
  namespace: test-ns
spec:
  tracing:
    provider:
      type: opentelemetry
      properties:
        address: http://opentelemetry:4318
        tracesUri: http://opentelemetry:4318/v1/traces
        serviceType: http
        serviceName: the-name
        timeout: 10s
        httpHeaders:
          auth: samething
        resourceAttributes:
          nay-key: nay-value
    sampling:
      client: 100
      random: 100
      overall: 100
    labels:
      - name: c-env-tag
        type: environment
        keyName: FLEX_NAME
        defaultValue: DEFAULT_VAL
      - name: c-header-tag
        type: requestHeader
        keyName: :method
        defaultValue: DEFAULT_METHOD
      - name: c-literal-tag
        type: literal
        defaultValue: the-tag
```

## Configure Distributed Tracing For Specific APIs

You can override the globally configured distributed tracing settings by applying the Tracing Policy
to specific APIs. You must first enable and configure distributed tracing for the gateway. You can
then apply this policy to the APIs you want to instrument:

- [Tracing Policy](https://docs.mulesoft.com/gateway/1.12/policies-included-tracing)