This post is about distributed communication protocols and frameworks.
These frameworks or protocols can be used an API or an Interface Definition Language (IDL), but they are broader terms.
List of Distributed Communication Protocols and Frameworks
Distributed communication and frameworks featured on this post:
- CORBA
- DCOM
- SOAP
- WS-Security
- RPC
- gRPC
CORBA
Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) is a communication framework developed by the Open Management Group (OMG). It is based on tight connections, unlike the most modern approaches that uses loose connections.
It was used in the 90s, but now it is considered outdated.
You can read this post about CORBA.
DCOM
DCOM is a Windows-only protocol developed by Microsoft.
It was used in the 90s, but now it is considered outdated.
SOAP
SOAP is a protocol.
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is SOAP is a standarized XML language that defines the interface for web services. WSDL is maintained by W3C.
SOAP may be complex and cumbersome, but robust against errors when compared to REST.
Other characteristics:
- Reliant on XML format (not JSON or others)
- Used for stateful communications.
SOAP consist of these parts:
- Envelope
- Encoding rules
- RPC representation
SOAP includes a header and body.
SOAP encoding rules are used to express the data type instances defined within the application.
WS-Security
WS-Security (an acronym for Web Service Security) is an extension to SOAP that is focused on web services.
The specifications informs that a Binary Security Token must be used while working with X.509 certificates.
It is defined by OASIS.
RPC
Remote Process Call (RPC).
gRPC
gRPC (Google RPC) is modern high-level framework for making RPCs between applications. It is developed by Google.
It is designed for distributed systems, especially microsystems.
It is cross-language, supporting multiple languages (C++, Java, Python, Go, etc.).