Remote Procedure Call (RPC)

Remote procedure call (RPC) exposes local function calls across process or network boundaries. We hold it as the default integration style for distributed systems. RPC began as IPC over the network stack, which is reasonable on one host. Once peers live on different machines, the call metaphor fights versioning, failure modes, and team boundaries.

Blurb

In distributed computing, a remote procedure call is when a computer program causes a procedure to execute in a different address space as if it were a local procedure call, without the programmer explicitly writing details for the remote interaction.

Summary

Why hold: RPC hides latency, partial failure, and contract evolution behind a synchronous function shape. Teams inherit tight coupling, brittle client stubs, and debugging pain when services move or scale independently. Prefer resource-oriented REST with OpenAPI for most HTTP services.

When RPC anyway: local IPC-shaped control planes, plugin hosts, or tooling protocols where both sides share a lifecycle (for example a CLI talking to a co-located daemon). gRPC is assess in those bounded cases, not a greenfield default for product APIs.

Relationship to IPC: same-machine RPC is often just IPC with a serializer. Treat cross-host RPC as a service boundary design problem, not a convenience wrapper.

Details