In distributed computing, a remote procedure call (RPC) is when a computer program causes a procedure (subroutine) to execute in a different address space, which is written as if it were a normal (local) procedure call, without the programmer explicitly writing the details for the remote interaction. That is, the programmer writes essentially the same code whether the subroutine is local to the executing program, or remote. This is a form of client–server interaction, typically implemented via a request–response message-passing system. In the object-oriented programming paradigm, RPCs are represented by remote method invocation (RMI). The RPC model implies a level of location transparency, namely that calling procedures are largely the same whether they are local or remote, but usually, they are not identical, so local calls can be distinguished from remote calls. Remote calls are usually orders of magnitude slower and less reliable than local calls, so distinguishing them is important.
The Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) is a standard defined by the Object Management Group (OMG) designed to facilitate the communication of systems that are deployed on diverse platforms. CORBA enables collaboration between systems on different operating systems, programming languages, and computing hardware. CORBA uses an object-oriented model although the systems that use the CORBA do not have to be object-oriented. CORBA is an example of the distributed object paradigm.
XML-RPC is a remote procedure call (RPC) protocol which uses XML to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism.
A web service (WS) is either:
The Web Services Invocation Framework (WSIF) supports a simple and flexible Java API for invoking any Web Services Description Language (WSDL)-described service.
The Data Distribution Service (DDS) for real-time systems is an Object Management Group (OMG) machine-to-machine standard that aims to enable dependable, high-performance, interoperable, real-time, scalable data exchanges using a publish–subscribe pattern.
XML Interface for Network Services (XINS) is an open-source technology for definition and implementation of internet applications, which enforces a specification-oriented approach.
Inter-Language Unification or ILU is a method for computer systems to exchange data, bridging differences in the way systems represent the various kinds of data. Even if two systems run on the same computer, or on identical computer hardware, many differences arise from the use of different computer languages to build the systems.
Component-based software engineering (CBSE), also called component-based development (CBD), is a style of software engineering that aims to build software out of loosely-coupled, modular components. It emphasizes the separation of concerns among different parts of a software system.
RMI-IIOP denotes the Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) interface over the Internet Inter-Orb Protocol (IIOP), which delivers Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) distributed computing capabilities to the Java platform. It was initially based on two specifications: the Java Language Mapping to OMG IDL, and CORBA/IIOP 2.3.1.
Apache Axis2 is a web service engine. It is a redesign and re-write of the widely used Apache Axis SOAP stack. Implementations of Axis2 are available in Java and C.
Thrift is an interface definition language and binary communication protocol used for defining and creating services for numerous programming languages. It was developed at Facebook for "scalable cross-language services development" and as of 2020 is an open source project in the Apache Software Foundation.
Component Object Model (COM) is a binary-interface standard for software components introduced by Microsoft in 1993. It is used to enable inter-process communication object creation in a large range of programming languages. COM is the basis for several other Microsoft technologies and frameworks, including OLE, OLE Automation, Browser Helper Object, ActiveX, COM+, DCOM, the Windows shell, DirectX, UMDF and Windows Runtime. The essence of COM is a language-neutral way of implementing objects that can be used in environments different from the one in which they were created, even across machine boundaries. For well-authored components, COM allows reuse of objects with no knowledge of their internal implementation, as it forces component implementers to provide well-defined interfaces that are separated from the implementation. The different allocation semantics of languages are accommodated by making objects responsible for their own creation and destruction through reference-counting. Type conversion casting between different interfaces of an object is achieved through the QueryInterface method. The preferred method of "inheritance" within COM is the creation of sub-objects to which method "calls" are delegated.
The Web Services Description Language is an XML-based interface description language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a web service. The acronym is also used for any specific WSDL description of a web service, which provides a machine-readable description of how the service can be called, what parameters it expects, and what data structures it returns. Therefore, its purpose is roughly similar to that of a type signature in a programming language.
Avro is a row-oriented remote procedure call and data serialization framework developed within Apache's Hadoop project. It uses JSON for defining data types and protocols, and serializes data in a compact binary format. Its primary use is in Apache Hadoop, where it can provide both a serialization format for persistent data, and a wire format for communication between Hadoop nodes, and from client programs to the Hadoop services. Avro uses a schema to structure the data that is being encoded. It has two different types of schema languages; one for human editing and another which is more machine-readable based on JSON.
JSON-WSP is a web service protocol that uses JSON for service description, requests and responses. It is inspired from JSON-RPC, but the lack of a service description specification with documentation in JSON-RPC sparked the design of JSON-WSP.
gRPC is a cross-platform open source high performance remote procedure call (RPC) framework. gRPC was initially created by Google, which used a single general-purpose RPC infrastructure called Stubby to connect the large number of microservices running within and across its data centers from about 2001. In March 2015, Google decided to build the next version of Stubby and make it open source. The result was gRPC, which is now used in many organizations aside from Google to power use cases from microservices to the "last mile" of computing. It uses HTTP/2 for transport, Protocol Buffers as the interface description language, and provides features such as authentication, bidirectional streaming and flow control, blocking or nonblocking bindings, and cancellation and timeouts. It generates cross-platform client and server bindings for many languages. Most common usage scenarios include connecting services in a microservices style architecture, or connecting mobile device clients to backend services.
Cap’n Proto is a data serialization format and Remote Procedure Call (RPC) framework for exchanging data between computer programs. The high-level design focuses on speed and security, making it suitable for network as well as inter-process communication. Cap'n Proto was created by the former maintainer of Google's popular Protocol Buffers framework and was designed to avoid some of its perceived shortcomings.
