GSS-API provides several types of portability for applications:
Mechanism independence. GSS-API provides a generic interface for security. By specifying a default security mechanism, an application does not need to know the mechanism to be applied nor any details about that mechanism.
Protocol independence. GSS–API is independent of any communications protocol or protocol suite. For example, GSS–API can be used with applications that use sockets, RCP, or TCP/IP.
RPCSEC_GSS is an additional layer that smoothly integrates GSS-API with RPC. For more information, see Remote Procedure Calls With GSS-API.
Platform independence. GSS-API is independent of the type of operating system on which an application is running.
Quality of Protection independence. Quality of Protection (QOP) refers to the type of algorithm for encrypting data or generating cryptographic tags. GSS-API allows a programmer to ignore QOP by using a default that is provided by GSS-API. On the other hand, an application can specify the QOP if necessary.