RUM - OpenKit in iOS

[Stepu]

Hello, is it possible to use OpenKit on iOS?
(We have an sdk that will be used by different mobile apps but it is possible that these apps are already instrumented with Dynatrace, so I understand that the classic instrumentation would cause problems and OpenKit seems a similar solution)

[AntonioSousa]

Interesting question. As a first reply, I would say it might work, but then it's not a usual use-case. You have to verify if one of the OpenKit languages is usable by you. In a last resort, you might also be able to implement it using the Dynatrace API, but it's way more difficult than using the mobile SDK in the first place.

[Patrick_H · Accepted solution]

IMHO the biggest problems that might show up here are legal issues - imagine you have a 3rd-party SDK phoning home in your app you did not know - so this needs approval from your customers and also a way to turn it off. From technical perspective it should work, but pretty sure is not convenient. On iOS you would need the C based OpenKit and if you have a modern app - so no more Objective-C but only Swift you probably also want to write yourself a wrapper to the C APIs. And there won't be any auto-instrumentation. The manual instrumentation of the library should not be a problem with what Dynatrace OneAgent for iOS does - unless you also start instrumenting web request, which will brake the customers linking to service calls if their backend also is monitored, as there can only be one x-dynatrace header on a web request.
So from technical perspective it should be possible but from privacy issues I would strongly vote against it.