If you want an easy to use perl only way of doing this then look at Net::Daemon, and the related RPC::pServer and Net::pRPC::Client.

It comes with a simple example of a calculator server which is a few dozen lines of perl. You might prefer this to merlyn's solution as it is probably lower overhead. Less buzzword friendly though ;-)

TIMTOWDI/YMMV/IMHO/ETC