Remote Procedure Call as a Managed System Service

Explore a novel approach to Remote Procedure Call (RPC) implementation in this 15-minute conference talk from NSDI '23. Discover how researchers from Duke University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the University of Washington propose transforming RPC into a managed system service. Learn about the challenges faced by current RPC implementations, including the need for visibility, control, and policy flexibility in cloud computing environments. Understand the limitations of using sidecars and service mesh proxies, and how they can introduce unnecessary overhead. Delve into the proposed solution, mRPC, which performs RPC marshalling and policy enforcement as a system service rather than a library. Explore the benefits of this approach, including improved performance, enhanced policy flexibility, and support for live upgrades. Examine how mRPC speeds up the DeathStarBench microservice benchmark by up to 2.5 times compared to sidecar implementations. Gain insights into the future of RPC implementations and their potential impact on cloud computing efficiency and manageability.