Add Instana instrumentation support for GeneXus HTTP client libraries (including Ron’s Http-Client)

Problem

A customer application built with GeneXus is being monitored using Instana. The application performs outbound HTTP calls to backend services (Bantotal services) using the HTTP client implementation provided by the GeneXus runtime.

During an investigation of missing distributed tracing between the “Canales” services and the Bantotal services, Instana support analyzed a reproducer application provided by the customer. The analysis confirmed that outbound HTTP calls are executed using Ron’s Http-Client, which is internally used by GeneXus.

Currently Instana does not provide instrumentation support for this HTTP client implementation.

As a result, outbound HTTP calls executed through this client do not generate spans and distributed trace correlation is lost between services.

Impact

This prevents full end-to-end observability of a critical integration flow used by banking channels.

Specifically:

• Outbound HTTP calls from GeneXus applications do not generate spans

• Distributed tracing breaks between services

• Root cause analysis across services becomes significantly harder

• Performance issues in backend services cannot be properly correlated

Reproducer

A minimal GeneXus reproducer application was created and provided to Instana support.

The reproducer consists of:
REST endpoint → GeneXus procedure → outbound HTTP GET call.

Testing confirmed that the HTTP client used at runtime is Ron’s Http-Client and that Instana does not instrument it.

Requested enhancement

Add instrumentation support in Instana for the HTTP client libraries used by GeneXus (including Ron’s Http-Client) so that outbound HTTP calls generate spans and support distributed tracing.

Reference

Instana internal investigation reference:
PR: INSTA-78915

Additional context

GeneXus is widely used in banking systems in Latin America, so supporting its HTTP client libraries would benefit multiple enterprise customers using Instana.