Wikipedia
DTrace is a comprehensive dynamic tracing framework created by Sun Microsystems for troubleshooting kernel and application problems on production systems in real time. Originally developed for Solaris, it has since been released under the free Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) and has been ported to several other Unix-like systems.
DTrace can be used to get a global overview of a running system, such as the amount of memory, CPU time, filesystem and network resources used by the active processes. It can also provide much more fine-grained information, such as a log of the arguments with which a specific function is being called, or a list of the processes accessing a specific file.
, Oracle announced the porting of DTrace from Solaris to Linux, but it remains officially unavailable. An unofficial DTrace port to Linux is available, although with no changes in licensing terms . As an alternative, Linux's SystemTap provides a similar set of features as DTrace.