Building Scalable and High-Performance Applications with gRPC in .NET 8.

#beginners #dotnet #programming #webdev

Introduction

gRPC, short for Google Remote Procedure Call, is a high-performance framework built on top of the HTTP/2 protocol.gRPC uses Protocol Buffers to define the service API. Protocol Buffers are a language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data. This makes it easy to develop gRPC services that can be used with a variety of clients and servers. we will look at basics of gRPC, including how to create a simple Client and Server Communication in ASP.NET Core Web API
application and consume it from another API.

The 4 Essential gRPC Communication Patterns

Server to client streaming

Client to server streaming

Bi-directional streaming

Unary (Unary RPC no streaming)

Server to client streaming

A server-streaming RPC is similar to a unary RPC, except that the server returns a stream of messages in response to a client’s request. After sending all its messages, the server’s status details (status code and optional status message) and optional trailing metadata are sent to the client. This completes processing on the server side. The client completes once it has all the server’s messages.

Client to server streaming

A client-streaming RPC is similar to a unary RPC, except that the client sends a stream of messages to the server instead of a single message. The server responds with a single message (along with its status details and optional trailing metadata), typically but not necessarily after it has received all the client’s messages.

Bi-directional streaming

Bi-directional streaming in gRPC refers to a communication pattern where both the client and the server can send multiple messages to each other over a single gRPC connection. It enables real-time, asynchronous, and continuous communication between the client and server, allowing them to exchange data in a streaming fashion.

Unary RPC

is a communication pattern in gRPC where the client sends a single request message to the server, and the server sends a single response message back to the client. It is the simplest communication pattern in gRPC, and it is well-suited for applications where the client needs to send a single request to the server and receive a single response back.

Serialization Formats in gRPC

Types of Serialization

Protocol Buffers (Language-neutral, efficient way to define data structures)

JSON (Human-readable, easy to use)

Protocol Buffers

Protocol Buffers is the default and recommended serialization format for gRPC in .NET Core. It is a language-agnostic binary serialization format developed by Google. With protobuf, you define the structure of your data using a .proto file, specifying messages and their fields. The protobuf compiler then generates strongly typed code in your target language (C# in this case) for serialization and deserialization.

JSON

While protobuf is the recommended choice, gRPC in .NET Core also supports JSON serialization. JSON is a widely-used human-readable data interchange format. With JSON serialization, you define your message structures using Data Transfer Objects (DTOs) in C#, annotated with attributes such as [DataContract] and [DataMember]. The JSON serializer then converts these objects to JSON format for communication.