Topic 14. Distributed computing models: network sockets and remote procedure calls (WCF, CoreWCF, gRPC)

Goal: become familiar with interaction models of distributed systems, the TCP/IP protocol stack, and the WCF, CoreWCF, and gRPC remote procedure call technologies; learn to create asynchronous TCP and UDP programs on .NET sockets with a custom application-layer protocol, timeouts, and error handling; master describing Protocol Buffers contracts, unary and streaming gRPC calls, deadlines, and status codes.

Lecture contents

1. Network communication and sockets — Interaction models in distributed systems · The TCP/IP protocol stack · Sockets in .NET
2. Protocols and reliability — An application-layer protocol · The UDP protocol · Reliability of network communication
3. Remote procedure calls and WCF — Remote procedure calls · WCF and CoreWCF
4. gRPC and technology comparisons — gRPC and Protocol Buffers · gRPC call types, deadlines, and interceptors · Tools and technology comparisons
5. Examples and common mistakes — Program examples · Common mistakes

Practice and review

• Practice — 3 worked examples with complete code and output
• Tasks — 30 variants, each with tasks at three difficulty levels
• Summary — conclusions, self-check questions, and useful links