2. TERMINOLOGY

This document discusses clients, calls, servers, replies, services, programs, procedures, and versions. Each remote procedure call has two sides: an active client side that makes the call to a server, which sends back a reply. A network service is a collection of one or more remote programs. A remote program implements one or more remote procedures; the procedures, their parameters, and results are documented in the specific program's protocol specification. A server may support more than one version of a remote program in order to be compatible with changing protocols.

For example, a network file service may be composed of two programs. One program may deal with high-level applications such as file system access control and locking. The other may deal with low-level file input and output and have procedures like "read" and "write". A client of the network file service would call the procedures associated with the two programs of the service on behalf of the client.

The terms client and server only apply to a particular transaction; a particular hardware entity (host) or software entity (process or program) could operate in both roles at different times. For example, a program that supplies remote execution service could also be a client of a network file service.