What is a primary use of spans in OpenTelemetry?

In OpenTelemetry, spans are fundamental units that represent a single operation within a trace. Each span records information about what operation is being performed, such as its start and end times, status, and any contextual metadata. This structure allows developers to gain insights into the performance and behavior of distributed systems by observing how different operations are related over time.

By using spans, you can effectively visualize and analyze the execution of requests, identify latency issues, and locate bottlenecks within your applications. Each span can also contain additional attributes and events to provide deeper context into the operation, enabling better monitoring and troubleshooting of microservices or serverless architectures.

While spans can interact with other areas of telemetry such as metadata and RPC systems, their primary role remains focused on representing individual operations within a larger trace. This makes option C the most accurate choice regarding the use of spans in OpenTelemetry.