RPC, or remote procedure calling, is the ability to distribute parts of a program to other computers on a network. An RPC facility manages the exchange of data between computers to make remote execution tranparent to the user. Distributed applications based on RPC can utilize distributed network resources and increase significantly the computing power brought to bear on complex problems. An RPC facility is the fundamental element of a distributed computing environment.
The book builds a working understanding of RPC programming through examples. Sun RPC, the de facto standard on UNIX systems, is covered in detail. Interprocess communication and other related UNIX programming topics are also covered.
The standard-issue RPC documentation is difficult to understand and lacks real-world examples. There are, in addition, many techniques to learn. This book, written from a programmer's perspective, shows you what you can do with RPC and presents a framework for learning it.
Contents include:
Foundations of remote procedure calling; what it is, how it works, and which vendors support it.
What RPC offers to application and product developers.How RPC fits into a distributed computing environment.
ONC and DCE, a comparison of their similarities and differences.
How to develop, debug, and deploy networked applications.
Understanding the interprocess control (IPC) mechanisms on which RPC is based.
Using remote procedure calling in parallel/distributed processing and scheduling.
Using remote procedure calling with windowing systems.
Examples of distributed applications using both single and multiple concurrent servers.
John Bloomer currently develops network multimedia and imaging applications for GE's Signal and Image Coding R&D group. He has experience designing VLSI chips and design automation tools and has developed hardware and software for graphics and signal processing systems. John often lectures on programming for distributed computing with a second O'Reilly book on DCE RPC underway.
Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal featured on the cover of Power Programming with RPC is a kangaroo. The kangaroo is a marsupial, an animal which raises its young in a pouch. When the young are born, they are only partially developed embryos, deaf, blind, and furless, and weighing about a gram. Once born, they make their way into their mother's pouch where they remain for up to six months before they are able to venture out into the world. Kangaroos are native to Tasmania, Australia, New Guinea, and parts of the Bismark Archipelagos. They are herbivores who chew their cud like cows, and they are capable of existing on very coarse grasses, unlike cattle or sheep. They need very little water to survive and are capable of going for months without drinking at all. When they do need water, they dig "wells" for themselves, frequently going as deep as three or four feet. These "kangaroo pits" are a common source of water for other animals living in the kangaroo's environment. UNIX and its attendant programs can be unruly beasts. Nutshell Handbooks(R) help you tame them.
Edie Freedman designed this cover and the entire UNIX bestiary that appears on other Nutshell Handbooks. The beasts themselves are adapted from 19th-century engravings from the Dover Pictorial Archive.
The text of this book is set in Times Roman; headings are Helvetica; examples are Courier. Text was prepared using SortQuad's sqtroff text formatter. Figures are produced with a Macintosh. Printing is done on a Tegra Varityper 5000.
Comments about O'Reilly Media Power Programming with RPC:
Excellent delivery of a very complex subject. This is a very difficult area to understand clearly in IPC and this text adds clarity. For the developer the book shows clear extensive and comprehensive examples of some of the more challenging and difficult to solve problem areas such as GUIs with multiple event IO having to be interleaved with GUI repaints - difficult things to get right sometime. Thank you for a book that really helps, its hard to find books like this focussed sharply on their titled subject material.
8/4/2000
(1 of 1 customers found this review helpful)
3.0
Power Programming with RPC Review
By Clayton Mitchell
from Undisclosed
Comments about O'Reilly Media Power Programming with RPC:
This book should probably be considered one of the essential guides to UNIX and networking heterogeneous systems. I can't count the number of times a developer or system administrator has asked the question "How do I start a job on another computer from this compouter?" This is perplexing probably because of the many possible answers, and from a security standpoint or a resource management or even configuration management standpoint, most of the solutions I see being used are more like hacks than precise solutions. RPC provides that exact solution set to this and many other network applications.
