Editing Inter-process communication (section)

{{Short description|Sharing of data between running processes in a computer system}}
{{more footnotes|date=August 2015}}
[[File:ArchitectureCloudLinksSameSite.png|thumb|upright=1.2|A [[grid computing]] system that connects many personal computers over the Internet via inter-process network communication]]

In [[computer science]], '''interprocess communication''' ('''IPC''') is the sharing of data between running [[Process (computing)|processes]] in a computer system. Mechanisms for IPC may be provided by an [[operating system]]. Applications which use IPC are often categorized as [[client–server model|clients and servers]], where the client requests data and the server responds to client requests.<ref name="microsoft.com">{{cite web|url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365574(v=vs.85).aspx| title= Interprocess Communications|publisher=Microsoft}}</ref> Many applications are both clients and servers, as commonly seen in [[distributed computing]].

IPC is very important to the design process for [[microkernel]]s and [[nanokernel]]s, which reduce the number of functionalities provided by the kernel. Those functionalities are then obtained by communicating with servers via IPC, leading to a large increase in communication when compared to a regular monolithic kernel. IPC interfaces generally encompass variable analytic framework structures. These processes ensure compatibility between the multi-vector protocols upon which IPC models rely.<ref>{{cite journal |last1= Camurati |first1=P |title=Inter-process communications for system-level design |journal= International Workshop on Hardware/Software Codesign |date=1993}}</ref>

An IPC mechanism is either [[Synchronization (computer science)|synchronous]] or asynchronous. [[Synchronization (computer science)#Implementation|Synchronization primitives]] may be used to have synchronous behavior with an asynchronous IPC mechanism.