Learn about request flow tracking in distributed systems through this 45-minute conference talk that explores OpenTelemetry's open standard approach to observability. Discover how the rise of microservices has made tracking increasingly critical and explore the evolution from proprietary tools like Jaeger and Zipkin to the unified OpenTelemetry framework. Examine the three pillars of observability - logging, metrics, and tracing - while following along with practical demonstrations that showcase how to implement OpenTelemetry in distributed architectures. Through a simple use case, gain hands-on insights into leveraging OpenTelemetry's capabilities to enhance system monitoring and troubleshooting in modern distributed environments.