Remote Procedure Call

Product Highlights

Remote Procedure Call provides an Open Systems Standard means of implementing client/server applications over a TCP/IP network. Product highlights include:

• Open Systems Standard Remote Procedure Call Via ONC RPC/XDR
• Tandem System May Be Client, Server Or Both
• Significant Performance Improvement Over Other Client/Server Products
• Parallel RPC Provides Scalable, Horizontally Expandable Environment
• Guardian Multithreading Enhancements
• Optional WINSOCK PC Implementation

Product Summary

Remote Procedure Call is an implementation of Sun Microsystems' ONC RPC/XDR, which is the leading remote procedure call mechanism in use over TCP/IP networks. It wide adoption and deployment assures interoperability with a wide variety of hosts, workstations, and PC's.

A significant advantage of RPC/XDR is the fact that it is a recognized and formal industry standard, employing no proprietary or nonstandard technology as do other client/server products in the Tandem marketplace.

ONC RPC/XDR employs a true peer to peer design. As a result, applications running on the Tandem system may act as not only as servers, but also as clients. In fact, a single application may act as both a client as well as a server.

Another advantage offered by the product is its performance profile. Designed from its very inception to be used in conjunction with TCP/IP, it offers significant performance improvements when compared to other client/server products in the Tandem marketplace.

A unique feature of the product offering is the fact that an optional Windows Sockets (WINSOCK) implementation is also available. It provides a complete implementation for any Windows PC that is running a WINSOCK compliant TCP/IP stack.

While fully conforming to the RPC/XDR programming paradigm, this product has also been enhanced to offer extensions that are of particular usefulness in the Tandem Guardian environment. These include:

Parallel RPC

This feature provides an extension to RPC/XDR that permits multiple RPC server processes to be executed in parallel.

Incoming requests from client applications are assigned to servers on a round robin basis, assuring the distribution of requests across servers and CPU's.

Parallel RPC provides the means by which applications may be deployed in a scalable and horizontally expandable fashion.

This feature is available in both the Guardian as well as WINSOCK versions.

Mutithreaded RPC

The Multithreaded RPC feature provides extensions to the standard RPC programming paradigm that permit the development of multithreaded servers.

Multithreaded RPC servers may concurrently execute multiple simultaneous transaction requests in an asynchronous fashion. Standard Guardian no-waited I/O requests are fully supported.

This feature provides the ability to simultaneously exploit features of both the Guardian operating system as well as RPC/XDR.

Product Benefits

• Open Systems Standards compliance assures complete interoperability with virtually any other network node.
• Peer to peer architecture allows Tandem resident RPC applications to act as client, server, or both.
• Increased productivity and economy due to highly efficient design and implementation.
• Minimal "learning curve" due to the product's compliance with the standard RPC programming paradigm as well as Open Systems Standards.
• Exploit "Tandem fundamentals" via Guardian extensions to the RPC programming interface.
• Available in a high performance FEP version as well as Tandem TCP/IP version.

Further Details

To learn more about RPC/XDR, its implementation, and its advantages, follow any of these links:

• The TCP/Link PLUS Product Announcement is a downloadable document containing further descriptive information regarding RPC/XDR.
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS) may answer some of your remaining questions.
• An on site product demonstration is the best way to get into the "nuts and bolts" of any product.
• Contact a Failsafe representative to discuss product capabilities.