A Closer Look at RPC

In a networked environment, applications may be divided into separate processes that run on different computers. The benefit of RPC, and the real reason for using it, is that RPC allows potentially complex functions to execute on remote (and potentially very powerful) computers. The sharing of the computational burden can significantly speed up some applications, particularly database queries.

RPC is the preferred method for developers to write applications for Windows NT because there's more communication control than with named pipes.

The parts of the remote procedure call mechanism are:

• Remote Procedure Stub (Proc Stub) — Packages remote procedure calls to be sent to the server by means of the RPC runtime.

• RPC Runtime (RPC RT) — Responsible for communications between the local and remote computer, including the passing of parameters.

• Application Stub (APP Stub) — Accepts RPC requests from the RPC RT, unwraps the package, and makes the appropriate call to the remote procedure.

• Remote Procedure — The actual procedure that is called over the network.

The remote procedure call facility provided in Windows NT is compatible with the Open Software Foundation's (OSF) distributed computing environment (DCE) specification. Windows NT workstations can use RPC to interoperate with any other workstations that support this standard.