Question

A developer instruments a Lambda function with the AWS X-Ray SDK. The function calls an internal DynamoDB table and an external third-party payment API over HTTPS. Users report intermittent slowness, but the DynamoDB and Lambda CloudWatch metrics look normal. The developer wants X-Ray traces to clearly show how much time is spent on the outbound HTTPS call to the third-party API so they can confirm it is the bottleneck. What should the developer do?

Accepted Answer

Patch the HTTP client library with the X-Ray SDK so outbound HTTPS calls are automatically captured as subsegments within the function's segment.

Answer

Add a custom CloudWatch metric that records the total function duration and create an alarm on the p99 value.

Answer

Enable X-Ray active tracing on the DynamoDB table so the payment API latency is included in the table's service node.

Answer

Increase the Lambda function timeout so the third-party call has more time to complete and appears in the logs.