Technology

Philote is built on top of Protocol Buffers (protobuf) and gRPC. Both of these tools were first developed inside Google and then open sourced. These libraries are very popular, have large communities, and enjoy widespread use, especially in the cloud computing space.

Protobuf

Protocol Buffers, often referred to as Protobuf, is a widely-used binary serialization format developed by Google that serves as a fundamental technology for data interchange in software systems. Protocol Buffers enable the efficient encoding and decoding of structured data, making it an convenient for transmitting and persisting data across various applications, languages, and environments.

At its core, Protobuf defines a language-agnostic schema for data structures using a human-readable and language-neutral interface definition language (IDL). This schema specifies the structure and types of data to be serialized, allowing developers to define their data models with precision. With its compact binary format and efficient encoding and decoding processes, Protocol Buffers offer significant advantages in terms of speed, size, and compatibility compared to traditional text-based serialization formats like XML or JSON. This makes Protobuf an essential technology for improving data exchange in software systems, particularly when performance and interoperability are critical concerns.

gRPC

gRPC is a high-performance and language-agnostic remote procedure call (RPC) framework also developed by Google and since open-sourced. It is designed to facilitate efficient and scalable communication between distributed systems, making it a pivotal technology in modern software architecture.

gRPC relies on Protocol Buffers as its interface definition language (IDL) for defining both the service methods and the data structures exchanged between client and server. This combination of gRPC and Protocol Buffers provides a type-safe way to define remote services and the messages they use. One of gRPC’s standout features is its support for several programming languages, allowing developers to seamlessly connect and interact between different platforms and environments. It utilizes HTTP/2 as the transport protocol, offering multiplexing, flow control, and other performance optimizations. Moreover, gRPC provides built-in features such as authentication, load balancing, and error handling, making it a powerful choice for building efficient, robust, and cross-platform microservices and APIs in modern software applications.