gRPC in .NET: Basics & More • Poornima Nayar • GOTO 2024

gRPC is a high-performance, open-source RPC (Remote Procedure Call) framework designed for HTTP/2 and modern service-to-service communication

Protocol Buffers (protobuf) serve as gRPC’s data serialization format and contract definition language - they are language-neutral and platform-independent

Four main communication modes supported:

• Unary (traditional request/response)
• Server streaming
• Client streaming
• Bidirectional streaming

Code generation is key part of gRPC workflow:

• Proto files define the contract
• Tools generate server/client code for specific languages
• Generated code handles serialization/deserialization

Built-in versioning support through:

• Package naming
• Field numbering
• Backward/forward compatibility features
• Non-breaking vs breaking changes clearly defined

Best suited for:

• Microservices communication
• Polyglot environments
• High-performance requirements
• Streaming scenarios
• IoT and device communication

Requires careful consideration around:

• Field numbering (impacts wire format)
• Breaking vs non-breaking changes
• Versioning strategy
• Message design and evolution

Native support in .NET Core 3.0+ with full ASP.NET Core integration including:

• Dependency injection
• Authentication/authorization
• Logging
• Middleware

gRPC channels should be reused as they are expensive to create and maintain long-lived HTTP/2 connections

Hosting options on Azure include:

• Container Apps
• Linux App Service
• Kubernetes Service