Inter-Process Communication (IPC) Mechanisms for Client–Server Communication: Architectures, Performance Trade-Offs, and Emerging Paradigms

Igbokwe Benson Ikechukwu; Joshua Chinemerem Chibueze.; Nnorom Chinomso Modesta

doi:10.56201/rjmcit.vol.12.no2.2026.pg13.33

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Inter-Process Communication (IPC) Mechanisms for Client–Server Communication: Architectures, Performance Trade-Offs, and Emerging Paradigms

Igbokwe Benson Ikechukwu, Joshua Chinemerem Chibueze., Nnorom Chinomso Modesta

Abstract

Client-server systems are built on inter-process communication and, as a direct consequence of this technology, on performance, scalability, and security frameworks in modern computing environments, especially in cloud-native and microservices systems. This paper critically analyzes the IPC mechanisms employed in client-server communication, particularly with respect to architectural issues, architectural performance, and architectural security. It has used a qualitative analytical review approach where by existing classical IPC techniques, including, pipes, message queues, shared memory, and synchronisation primitives, have been combined with network-oriented mechanisms such as sockets, remote procedure calls, and RESTful APIs, and message-oriented middleware and evaluated on the basis of latency, throughput, resource overhead, scalability, fault tolerance, and security exposure. The findings suggest that shared memory has low latency and high local communication throughput, but a very high level of synchronisation complexity and security risks, whereas the message-oriented and asynchronous IPC model exhibits better scalability and resilience. Distributed systems include network-based mechanisms that provide interoperability at the expense of higher latency and protocol overhead. Security analysis also identifies endpoints of IPC as critical attack surfaces that require layered controls, including access control, encryption, and isolation. This paper concludes that not one IPC mechanism is universally optimal, but it is important to select the IPC mechanism depending on context in line with workload, deployment model, and security needs. It is thus suggested that future systems should be designed as hybrid IPC systems, be security-by- design, and strive to advance emerging solutions such as user-space, zero-copy, and energy-aware IPC to enhance performance efficiency, operational resilience, and sustainability in next- generation distributed computing infrastructur

Keywords

Inter-process communication; Client–server architecture; Distributed systems; IPC performance trade-offs; Cloud-native computing; Microservices; Secure communication; Scalability 1

References

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Inter-Process Communication (IPC) Mechanisms for Client–Server Communication: Architectures, Performance Trade-Offs, and Emerging Paradigms

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