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Remote procedure call (RPC) is an Inter-process communication technology that allows a computer program to cause a subroutine or procedure to execute in another address space (commonly on another computer on a shared network) without the programmer explicitly coding the details for this remote interaction. That is, the programmer would write essentially the same code whether the subroutine is local to the executing program, or remote. When the software in question is written using object-oriented principles, RPC may be referred to as remote invocation or remote method invocation.

Note that there are many different technologies commonly used to accomplish this which are often incompatible.

It is fairly self explanatory - a procedure call made on software running in a remote machine.

In the calling machine there is a stub, which has the same parameters as the remote procedure. The stub simply packages up all the parameters and sends them over the network to the remote machine. A Server in the remote machine accepts the message, unpacks the parameters, and calls the desired procedure. It then packs up the return result, if any, and sends it over the network to the stub, which returns it to the caller. The net effect is for the caller to achieve "action at a distance".

Procedure call is a well understood control mechanism used in sequential programing languages. Remote Procedure Call extends the procedure call semantics to call procedures that actually lies on a remote machine. When an RPC is invoke, the caller is suspended,a message containing argument is constructed & passed to the remote machine.The procedure is executed on the remote machine.