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22 Nov 2023

Beginner

A Remote Procedure Call (RPC) is a protocol that one program can use to request a service from a program located on another computer in a network. In other words, it allows a program to cause a procedure (subroutine) to execute in another address space (commonly on another machine).

The basic idea behind RPC is similar to that of a local procedure call, but with the crucial difference that the procedure being called exists on a different address space. The calling process sends a request message to the remote process to execute a specified procedure with given parameters, and the remote process sends back a response message with the result.

RPC abstracts the communication between processes, making it easier for developers to write distributed, client-server applications. It hides the details of network communication and allows programmers to treat remote procedure calls much like local procedure calls.

There are different RPC implementations and standards, such as DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model), CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture), and gRPC (Google Remote Procedure Call), each with its own features and characteristics.

  +---------------------+                 +---------------------+
  |    Client Program   |                 |    Server Program   |
  +---------------------+                 +---------------------+
              |                                       |
              | RPC Request                           |
              |-------------------------------------->|
              |                                       |
              |          Network Communication        |
              |======================================>|
              |                                       |
              |                                       |
              |            Server Processes           |
              |            the RPC Request            |
              |                                       |
              |                                       |
              |<--------------------------------------|
              |                                       |
              |         Network Communication         |
              |<======================================|
              |                                       |
              |     RPC Response (Result or Error)    |
              |                                       |

In this diagram:

  1. The client program makes an RPC request by calling a procedure that is implemented remotely.
  2. The request is sent over the network to the server program.
  3. The server program processes the request and executes the specified procedure.
  4. The server sends back an RPC response to the client over the network.
  5. The client program receives the response and continues its execution.

This illustrates the basic flow of communication in a remote procedure call scenario. Keep in mind that the actual details can vary depending on the specific RPC framework or standard being used.

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