one embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates making an inter - process procedure call through a shared memory that is shared between a client process and a server process , wherein the client makes the inter - process procedure call as if the client is making a local procedure call , but the procedure call actually executes on the server . the system operates by receiving a request from the client through an application programming interface to make an inter - process procedure call . the system then allocates a section of the shared memory for the data structure parameters of the inter - process procedure call . additionally , the client process acquires a lock on a commonly known section of shared memory called a parameter control block . once the lock is acquired , the client process stores parameters for the inter - process procedure call in the parameter control block . finally , the client process clears a call_done flag and releases the lock .