Using gRPC

gRPC was released by Google. It is a high performance Remote Procedure Call (RPC) platform. gRPC uses protobuf (protocol buffers) to the payload. Due to the functionalities, it is common to compare with HTTP API /w JSON.

Items	gRPC	HTTP API /w JSON
Contract	Necessary (.proto)	Optional (OpenAPI)
Protocol	HTTP/2	HTTP
Payload	Protocol Buffers (Binary)	JSON (Human Readable)
Prescriptiveness	Constraint	Loose
Streaming	Client-Server, Bidirectional	Client-Server
Security	TLS	TLS

Basically gRPC is good at performance, code generation, strict specification (for parsing), streaming (especially for bidirection), and timeout/deadline than the HTTP API system. However, gRPC's disadvantages are that are hard for human reading, and limited browser support.

In the repository, I will show you how the gRPC works. If you are not familiar with the protocol buffers, please have a look at using-protobuf.

How to start

Create the rpc service on the protobuf

The first thing is to add the rpc definition to the protobuf. The following is a simple example.

/* ... */

// The greeting service definition.
service Greeter {
  // Sends a greeting
  rpc SayHello (HelloRequest) returns (HelloReply) {}
}

// The request message containing the user's name.
message HelloRequest {
  string name = 1;
  int32 value = 2;
}

// The response message containing the greetings
message HelloReply {
  string message = 1;
}

/* ... */

After that, you can get the auto-generated script or source code by using the protoc (protobuf compiler). Here I use Python as the example.

protoc --python_out=. helloworld.proto

In this example, two scripts are generated, helloworld_pb2.py and helloworld_pb2_grpc.py. Notice you don't need to manipulate these scripts at all.

Next you can start diving to developing both the server-side and the client-side of gRPC. In the server side, you have to implement the function taking the inputs from the client and returning the outputs. In addition, you have to define the access port too.

# ...

class Greeter(helloworld_pb2_grpc.GreeterServicer):
  def SayHello(self, request, context):
    return helloworld_pb2.HelloReply(
      message='Hello, {}! Your value is {}.'.format(request.name, request.value))


def serve():
  server = grpc.server(futures.ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=10))
  helloworld_pb2_grpc.add_GreeterServicer_to_server(Greeter(), server)
  server.add_insecure_port('[::]:50051')
  server.start()
  server.wait_for_termination()

# ...

To the client side, you have to implement the way of sending data to the server.

# ...

def run():
    with grpc.insecure_channel('localhost:50051') as channel:
        stub = helloworld_pb2_grpc.GreeterStub(channel)
        response = stub.SayHello(helloworld_pb2.HelloRequest(name='you', value=100))
    print("Greeter client received: " + response.message)

# ...

Let's put them together

In the first you have to create the runtime.

python3 -m virtualenv -p python3 env
source ./env/bin/activate
pip3 install --no-cache-dir -r ./requirements.txt

You have to install the protobuf compiler. If you are not familiar with this step, please have a look at using-protobuf. You can also check the protoc state by typing protoc --version.

Now let's build the protobuf.

protoc --python_out=. helloworld.proto

Please make sure two necessary files are generated. (helloworld_pb2.py and helloworld_pb2_grpc.py)

Next in one terminal, type the command to start the server.

python3 greeter_server.py

In another terminal, type the command to establish the connection between the server and the client.

# you should see
#
# Greeter client received: Hello, you! Your value is 100.
#
python3 greeter_client.py

jiankaiwang/using-grpc

Using gRPC

How to start

Create the rpc service on the protobuf

Let's put them together