---
title: APM
description: >-
  Use the APM overlay in Cloudcraft to visualize distributed traces between
  cloud resources on your architecture diagrams.
breadcrumbs: Docs > Cloudcraft in Datadog > Overlays > APM
---

# APM

{% alert level="info" %}
The APM overlay is in Preview and is available for AWS accounts only.
{% /alert %}

## Overview{% #overview %}

The APM overlay displays distributed APM traces as arcs between cloud resources on your Cloudcraft diagram. This helps you understand service-to-service request flows across your infrastructure without leaving the architecture view.

To open the overlay, click the APM tab in the overlay selector at the top of your diagram.

### Supported resource types{% #supported-resource-types %}

The APM overlay shows connections for resources that include a Cloud Resource ID (CCRID) in their trace data. The following resource types are supported:

- EC2
- S3
- Lambda
- RDS

{% image
   source="https://docs.dd-static.net/images/datadog_cloudcraft/overlays/cloudcraft_apm_overlay_diagram.041d34cae16520ebfa4fd84d3cd9d623.png?auto=format&fit=max&w=850 1x, https://docs.dd-static.net/images/datadog_cloudcraft/overlays/cloudcraft_apm_overlay_diagram.041d34cae16520ebfa4fd84d3cd9d623.png?auto=format&fit=max&w=850&dpr=2 2x"
   alt="APM overlay in Cloudcraft showing green trace arcs connecting services across an AWS architecture diagram, with the Traces count and legend visible in the bottom left." /%}

## Prerequisites{% #prerequisites %}

APM must be active in your Datadog organization, meaning at least one span has been ingested in the last 30 days. If APM is not set up, Cloudcraft displays an onboarding screen with links to [set up APM](https://docs.datadoghq.com/tracing/trace_collection/automatic_instrumentation/single-step-apm.md).

## Visualize trace connections{% #visualize-trace-connections %}

When the APM overlay is active, traces appear as curved arcs between resource nodes on your diagram. Each arc represents distributed tracing traffic between two resources.

### Legend{% #legend %}

| Arc color | Status |
| --------- | ------ |
| Green     | OK     |
| Red       | Error  |

Use the legend panel at the bottom of the screen to filter traces by status. The legend also displays the count of visible traces. Deselecting all statuses resets the view to show all traces.

## Investigate traces{% #investigate-traces %}

Click a trace arc to open a side panel showing the list of APM traces between those two resources. The side panel includes:

- A search bar to filter traces by query.
- A time picker (defaults to the last 30 minutes).
- A live mode toggle for streaming trace data.
- A column picker to customize which fields are displayed. Default columns include Duration, Service, Resource Name, and Error Type.
- An open in APM link to view the same query in the [Traces Explorer](https://docs.datadoghq.com/tracing/trace_explorer.md).

Click a trace row in the side panel to open the trace detail view, which displays the standard APM flame graph.

## Further reading{% #further-reading %}

- [Infrastructure overlay](https://docs.datadoghq.com/datadog_cloudcraft/overlays/infrastructure.md)
- [Observability overlay](https://docs.datadoghq.com/datadog_cloudcraft/overlays/observability.md)
- [Security overlay](https://docs.datadoghq.com/datadog_cloudcraft/overlays/security.md)
- [Cloud Cost Management overlay](https://docs.datadoghq.com/datadog_cloudcraft/overlays/ccm.md)
- [APM](https://docs.datadoghq.com/tracing.md)