Decoding gRPC: The Future of Remote Procedure Calls in Microservices

In the world of software, everything’s about staying connected and working together smoothly. Just like in a relay race, where the baton needs to be passed quickly and securely, gRPC helps software applications do just that, pass information back and forth efficiently.

gRPC is developed by the folks at Google and trust me it is a bit of a game-changer. It’s like having a supercharged courier service for your software, making sure messages are delivered quickly and reliably, no matter where the applications are or what language they’re written in.

So, what makes gRPC stand out? Well, it’s built on something called HTTP/2. Now, without getting too much into it, HTTP/2 is like the express train of the internet world – it’s way faster and more efficient than the old trains we were used to. This means that with gRPC, information is passed around at top speed, which is pretty cool when you think about how slow and problematic things used to be.

Then there are Protocol Buffers, or protobufs, which gRPC uses. Imagine you’re sending a secret message, and you need to make sure it’s both easy to send and secure. Protobufs are the way to go; they keep messages compact and easy to read for computers.

For anyone building apps, especially if you’re dealing with a bunch of them that need to talk to each other, gRPC is becoming a go-to solution. It’s all about making sure that this conversation between apps is as smooth as a good cup of coffee, no bitterness, just a perfect blend.

Now, about that ‘g’ in gRPC, it’s a bit of a chameleon. Initially, it stood for ‘Google’, since they were the brains behind it. But now, it represents different things in different releases. If you are interested in looking into it then you can check here.

Alright, let’s rewind a bit and look at the whole story of how apps started ‘talking’ to each other before diving into the specifics of gRPC. This story, from the early days to today’s advanced technologies, really helps in understanding how gRPC fits into the bigger picture. It’s like flipping through the pages of a history book before landing on the chapter about today’s cool tech.

Evolution of Interprocess Communication

The evolution of interprocess communication (IPC) is a fascinating journey through the history of computing, leading up to modern solutions like gRPC. Let’s take a walk down this technological lane:

1Early Days: Pipes and Sockets

In the beginning, IPC was all about basic pipes and sockets. Think of these like the old landline telephones – direct and straightforward, but limited in features. Pipes were used for communication between processes on the same machine, while sockets extended this communication over a network.

2Remote Procedure Calls (RPC)

Then came the concept of Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) in the 1980s. This was a big step, like moving from letters to email. With RPC, a program could cause a procedure (subroutine) to execute in another address space (commonly on another computer on a shared network). It abstracted the complexities of network communication, making interprocess communication look like a regular function call.

3CORBA and DCOM

In the 1990s, technologies like CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) and DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) tried to make IPC more versatile. They were like the early smartphones – more features and capabilities but also more complexity. These technologies aimed to enable objects and methods to interact across programming languages and network environments.

4Web Services, SOAP, and the Emergence of SOA

As the internet grew, Web Services became the go-to for IPC, especially with the advent of SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture). This era brought us technologies like SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and WSDL (Web Services Description Language). It was the era of the internet boom – everything and everyone started to connect more and more over the web.

From my personal experience, I’ve found that while SOAP is user-friendly, crafting it can be quite problematic due to the XML nature of its schema definition (WSDL). It’s an interesting paradox: easy to use but complex to create. One challenge I’ve noticed is how different tools and platforms sometimes interpret WSDL differently, which can lead to interoperability issues in diverse environments. Also, it’s not the most human-friendly approach, making it a bit tricky for those who are not used to it.

5RESTful APIs

Then came RESTful (Representational State Transfer) APIs, simplifying things by using standard HTTP methods. It was a cleaner, more resource-oriented approach, much like the transition from feature phones to smartphones. RESTful APIs became the backbone of web services, allowing different applications to communicate using the universal language of the web.

In the vast landscape of web development, REST APIs currently reign as the most widely used method for building web services. Whether it’s a small startup or a big tech company, everyone’s using REST APIs these days. They make it super easy for different computer systems to talk to each other, kind of like a common language for the digital world. What’s really cool about REST APIs is how they use the same stuff that powers regular web browsing (that’s the HTTP protocol) and work with simple data formats like JSON, which is like the text messages of the internet.

6The Arrival of gRPC

Enter gRPC, a brainchild of Google, which made its debut around 2015. We’re going to delve deep into gRPC in this article, but before we do, there’s something important to highlight: gRPC is quickly becoming the go-to standard for interprocess communication. It’s not just a passing trend; it’s on its way to becoming a major player in the tech industry. Once you dive into the story of gRPC, you’ll get why it’s seen as the cool new way for apps and services to talk to each other. It’s not just about technical jargon; it’s about making connections smoother and more efficient. And that’s what we’re going to explore together.

So, How Does gRPC Get Things Done??

Let me give you a sneak peek of what gRPC can do before we dive deeper. We’re in an era where REST APIs reign supreme, so I think a little comparison with REST will really catch your attention. Think of this as the teaser that keeps you hooked and eager to read more about gRPC. Don’t worry, will cover the comparison between REST and gRPC in detail in the later part of this article.

The image above gives a comparison of the data volume transferred through the wire for REST and gRPC for the same message. And it also shows that gRPC doesn’t involve any intermediate encoding like JSON in REST, making it a more direct form of communication.