KCNA Cloud Native Observability Practice Question
Which tool is specifically designed for distributed tracing and was originally developed by Uber?
⚠ Common exam trap
KCNA often tests the specific origin and purpose of observability tools, and candidates commonly confuse Jaeger with Prometheus or Grafana because all are CNCF-related observability projects.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Jaeger
Jaeger is an open source distributed tracing system originally developed by Uber and later donated to the CNCF, where it became a graduated project. It is designed to monitor and troubleshoot microservices-based distributed systems by tracing requests across service boundaries. This makes Jaeger the correct answer for a tool specifically built for distributed tracing and originating from Uber.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Prometheus
Why it's wrong here
Prometheus is a metrics collection and time-series monitoring system, storing numeric samples rather than spans, so it cannot trace requests across services. It is the correct choice for metric-based alerting, but Jaeger is the Uber-developed tool built specifically for distributed tracing.
- ✗
Loki
Why it's wrong here
Loki is a log aggregation system that indexes log labels, not spans, so it cannot reconstruct a request's path across services. It is tempting because it sits alongside tracing tools in observability stacks, but Jaeger is the Uber-developed distributed tracing system.
- ✗
Grafana
Why it's wrong here
Grafana is a visualisation and dashboarding platform that queries data sources such as Prometheus; it performs no distributed tracing itself. It is tempting because it commonly displays trace data, but Jaeger is the tracing system Uber originally developed for that purpose.
- ✓
Jaeger
Why this is correct
Jaeger was created at Uber for distributed tracing, propagating context across services to reconstruct request flows and latencies. This satisfies the stem's specific origin requirement, distinguishing it from Zipkin and from metrics-only tools such as Prometheus.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official CNCF exam blueprint
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