The Flow Graph is an API and service connectivity visualization tool that's part of the Cequence Unified API Protection (UAP) platform. The Flow Graph provides real-time monitoring and visualization of communications between applications and services.
What Flow Graph does
Flow Graph collects telemetry data from instrumented applications using OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) spans - essentially detailed records of requests, responses, and service interactions. Flow Graph processes this data every 60 seconds to generate visual representations of service-to-service connections and dependencies, as well as application communication pathways.
Flow Graph presents this information through interactive charts and graphs accessible on the Cequence UAP platform dashboard, providing a comprehensive view of their distributed system architecture.
Flow Graph use cases
API visualization tools like Flow Graph address several challenges.
Complex system understanding: As applications become more distributed with microservices architectures, manually tracking the interaction of dozens or hundreds of services becomes impractical. Visualization tools create a clear map of these relationships.
Troubleshooting and debugging: When something breaks in a distributed system, teams need to quickly identify which services are affected and where the failure originated.
Performance optimization: By seeing actual traffic patterns and bottlenecks visually, teams can identify which API endpoints are heavily used, which services are creating latency, and where to focus optimization efforts.
Security and compliance: Understanding data flows helps identify potential security vulnerabilities, unauthorized connections, or compliance issues where sensitive data might be flowing through unexpected pathways.
Documentation and onboarding: Visual service maps serve as living documentation that helps new team members understand system architecture quickly.
Change impact analysis: Before making changes to services, teams can see which other components depend on those services, reducing the risk of breaking downstream systems.
Capacity planning: Understanding usage patterns helps teams make informed decisions about scaling, resource allocation, and infrastructure planning.
The Flow Graph tool transforms abstract, invisible network communications into concrete, actionable visual information that development and operations teams can use to build more reliable, secure, and efficient systems.
Feature implementation and usage
After installing Flow Graph, you'll need to configure your applications to send telemetry data and access the monitoring capabilities through the user interface.
Application instrumentation setup
To enable Flow Graph monitoring, configure your instrumented applications to send OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) spans to the Flow Graph ingress endpoint. OTLP is an industry-standard protocol for collecting telemetry data from applications.
Authentication and API access
The system requires proper authentication to ensure secure data transmission. Follow these steps to establish connectivity:
- Access the onboarding instructions through the Flow Graph user interface
- Create a new API Client following the provided guidance
- Retrieve the authentication token generated for your API Client
- Configure your applications to include this token when sending requests to the
flow-graphcollector
The flow-graph collector is accessible through the edge ingress at a URL following this pattern:
https://edge.example.com/otlp/trace
Monitoring and visualization
Flow Graph generates metrics automatically to provide visibility into your application connections and performance. The system processes telemetry data on a 60-second interval by default. After each processing cycle, connection information updates and becomes visible in the Flow Graph chart interface.
To view your Flow Graph data, log in to your Cequence UAP platform instance and navigate to Discovery > Flow Graph. The chart displays real-time information about application connections and traffic patterns based on the OTLP spans your applications are sending.
Additional considerations
When planning your Flow Graph implementation, consider your network architecture, security requirements, and monitoring needs. The automatic installation with UAP provides the simplest deployment path, while manual installation offers greater flexibility for complex environments with specific namespace or security requirements.