GT Backwards Compatibility Approach 3

From Globus

Simultaneously distribute multiple versions of the client libraries and tools to allow for clients talking to old services. This is the complement to the strategy of having multiple Web Service interfaces deployed at once to allow old clients to continue to use the new GT deployment.

it is not clear if implementation of this approach is as simple as baking a version number into the library and tool names, or whether there needs to be a more "configure"-like mechanism to locate things by base name and version keys. The tricky issue is using "the right" headers and and libraries when building client-side applications for various purposes in a heterogeneous world.

The CoG Kit uses a dynamic plugin approach: after determining the version of the service at runtime, appropriately-versioned client code is loaded. An underlying requirement of this approach is that the version of the service be discoverable during runtime, and that the client-side code understands which version of the client this maps to.