Enabling inter-PMIPv6-domain handover with traffic distributors

• Published in: Journal of network and computer applications 2010-07, Vol.33 (4), p.397-409
• Main Authors: Zhong, Feng, Yeo, Chai Kiat, Lee, Bu Sung
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access methods and protocols, osi model; Applied sciences; Equipments and installations; Exact sciences and technology; HMIPv6; Inter-domain; Mobile radiocommunication systems; PMIPv6; Radiocommunications; Switching and signalling; Systems, networks and services of telecommunications; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Teleprocessing networks. Isdn; Teletraffic; Traffic distributor
• ISSN: 1084-8045; 1095-8592
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jnca.2010.03.001

As a network-based localized mobility management protocol, Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) Gundavelli et al. (2008) enables mobile node (MN) to move in a local domain without any involvement in the protocol signaling. In contrast to other mobility protocols (such as cellular IP (CIP) Valkó, 1999, and hierarchical mobile IP (HMIP) Soliman et al., 2005), PMIPv6 does not require any upgrade of MN's protocol stack. Instead, PMIPv6 employs network entities to handle the handover for MN. However, the PMIPv6 can only manage MN's reachability within a local domain. If MN moves beyond the border of PMIPv6 domain, the mobility support will be broken. To provide MN continuous support across domains, we propose a solution to interconnect neighboring PMIPv6 domains. In our proposal, we have introduced a new network entity called traffic distributor (TD). The TD is used to deliver the cross-domain traffic. If MN moves across domain borders, LMA will notify the TD and the TD will redirect MN's traffic to the new domain. To evaluate our proposal, we conduct experiments to compare it with Neumann et al.'s (2009a, 2009b) proposal which is another proposal to handle inter-PMIPv6-domain issues. Results show that our proposal is a feasible alternative for inter-domain handover, and it outperforms Neumann's proposal in terms of binding cache entry number, transmission delay and handover delay.