Differenece between RPC and RPC framework?

Difference Between RPC and RPC Framework

| Aspect | RPC (Remote Procedure Call) | RPC Framework |
|------------|--------------------------------|--------------------|
| Definition | A concept that allows calling functions on a remote server as if they were local. | A set of tools, libraries, and protocols that implement RPC functionality. |
| Functionality | Enables communication between client and server in distributed systems. | Provides ready-to-use implementations for handling RPC calls, serialization, security, and networking. |
| Example Concept | A client requests a function (getUserDetails()) on a remote server. | A framework like gRPC, Apache Thrift, or JSON-RPC handles the networking, serialization, and execution of getUserDetails(). |
| Transport Mechanism | Can work over HTTP, TCP, UDP, WebSockets, etc. | Uses specific transport mechanisms like HTTP/2 (gRPC), TCP (Thrift), or HTTP (JSON-RPC). |
| Serialization | Requires a way to encode and decode data (e.g., JSON, XML, Binary). | Built-in serialization formats like ProtoBuf (gRPC), JSON (JSON-RPC), or Binary (Thrift). |
| Security | Must be implemented separately (e.g., authentication, encryption). | Many frameworks provide built-in TLS encryption, authentication, and access control. |
| Cross-Language Support | Requires manual implementation for different languages. | Provides auto-generated client and server code for multiple languages (e.g., Python, Java, Go, C++). |

Simplified Explanation

• RPC (Concept) → Think of it as the idea of calling a remote function.
• RPC Framework (Implementation) → Think of it as the toolkit that makes it easy to implement RPC.

Example: How They Work Together

RPC (Concept)

You want a function that fetches user details from a remote server:

getUserDetails(user_id)

Without an RPC framework, you would have to manually:

• Open a network connection.
• Serialize the request.
• Send the request to the server.
• Deserialize the response.
• Handle errors and security.

RPC Framework (Implementation)

With an RPC framework like gRPC, you just define the service once:

service UserService {
  rpc GetUserDetails(UserRequest) returns (UserResponse);
}

The framework handles networking, serialization, retries, and authentication automatically.

Final Thoughts

| Use Case | Choose This |
|-------------|----------------|
| You need to understand how remote calls work | RPC (Concept) |
| You need to implement remote calls easily | RPC Framework (gRPC, Thrift, JSON-RPC, etc.) |

Would you like a step-by-step tutorial on implementing gRPC or Thrift?