RPC stands for Remote Procedure Calls. It needs to be enabled before you can execute stored procedures on a linked server.

If you’re not sure whether it’s enabled on a linked server, you can check it’s setting by querying the sys.servers system catalog view.

Example

Here’s an example to demonstrate.

SELECT 
    is_rpc_out_enabled
FROM sys.servers
WHERE name = 'Homer';

Result:

+----------------------+
| is_rpc_out_enabled   |
|----------------------|
| 1                    |
+----------------------+

In this case, RPC Out is enabled. If it was disabled, its value would be 0.

The RPC Out value is in the is_rpc_out_enabled column, so we can select just that column to make our result nice and concise. However, feel free to return all columns if you want to check other settings.

If you need to change the value, see How to Enable RPC Out using TSQL.