Bytedance Proposes Faster Linux Inter-Process Communication With "Run Process As Library"

CRANK

Bytedance engineers are exploring faster inter-process communication (IPC) on Linux via a new approach they call Run Process As Library (RPAL). Their initial benchmarks of RPAL are very promising for faster Linux IPC performance.Bytedance has been exploring faster Linux IPC while needing minimal modifications at the application level. Run Process As Library "RPAL" comes down to a framework to allow one process to invoke another as if making a local function call and able to bypass going through the Linux kernel.The core RPAL objectives come down to:"1. Data-plane efficiency: Reduce the number of data copies from two (in the shared memory solution) to one.2. Control-plane optimization: Eliminate the overhead of system calls and kernel's thread switches.3. Application compatibility: Minimize the modifications to existing applications that utilize Unix domain sockets and the epoll() family."For most readers just caring about the net benefit, RPAL is looking pretty wild:"During testing, t…