Support Protobuf and gRPC

[aoudiamoncef]

• [ ] document all added functions
• [ ] try in sandbox /simulation/labnet
• [ ] unit tests on the added/changed features
  • [ ] make tests compile
  • [ ] make tests pass
• [ ] add logs allowing easy debugging in case the changes caused problems
• [ ] if the API has changed, update the API specification

closes #3406 #3448