A Survey on Handover Management in Mobility Architectures

This work presents a comprehensive and structured taxonomy of available techniques for managing the handover process in mobility architectures. Representative works from the existing literature have been divided into appropriate categories, based on their ability to support horizontal handovers, vertical handovers and multihoming. We describe approaches designed to work on the current Internet (i.e. IPv4-based networks), as well as those that have been devised for the "future" Internet (e.g. IPv6-based networks and extensions). Quantitative measures and qualitative indicators are also presented and used to evaluate and compare the examined approaches. This critical review provides some valuable guidelines and suggestions for designing and developing mobility architectures, including some practical expedients (e.g. those required in the current Internet environment), aimed to cope with the presence of NAT/firewalls and to provide support to legacy systems and several communication protocols working at the application layer

Proposta e Estudo de Soluções para Otimização de Rotas em Ambientes de Mobilidade de Redes

Tese de doutoramento em Engenharia Informática, apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de CoimbraNo mundo de hoje, no qual se acentua a tendência para que todo o tipo de comunicações recorra à arquitetura TCP/IP e crescem, em número e tipo, os dispositivos que utilizam ligações sem fios, a mobilidade em ambiente IP assume um papel de extrema importância. Por esse facto, tem sido grande a atenção da comunidade científica à proposta e desenvolvimento de soluções de mobilidade IP de nós individuais e de redes. O NEMO Basic Support Protocol, IETF RFC 3963, foi desenvolvido com o objetivo de fornecer mobilidade de redes de forma imediata e transparente para a Internet atual. Contudo, a sua simplicidade está na génese das suas maiores limitações, que resultam em claros problemas de desempenho. Por outro lado, nenhuma das alternativas propostas com o intuito de resolver estas limitações conseguiu reunir consenso. Nesta tese é apresentada uma mudança de paradigma, que consiste em envolver os dispositivos finais nos processos de mobilidade de redes. A proposta Optimised Mobility for Enhanced Networking, OMEN, faculta os mecanismos necessários para que os dispositivos finais tomem consciência da sua condição de mobilidade e possam recorrer aos mecanismos de otimização de rotas já previstos no MIPv6, de forma a não estarem sujeitos às limitações do RFC 3963. Com esta medida consegue-se resolver o problema da decisão da altura ideal para otimizar a rota de um determinado fluxo e, ao mesmo tempo, permitir que os elementos da infraestrutura de rede móvel fiquem dedicados às suas funções de encaminhamento de pacotes, resultando num incremento acentuado do desempenho da rede e num decréscimo do consumo de energia. As simulações realizadas mostram que a proposta OMEN apresenta valores de desempenho de comunicação e de perda de pacotes substancialmente melhores que as restantes soluções existentes, corroborando as vantagens da mudança de paradigma. Para a realização dos diversos estudos de comparação das soluções foi necessário desenvolver um emulador que permitisse resolver as limitações de falta de implementação das soluções de mobilidade de redes e, ao mesmo tempo, permitir simulações de larga escala e de carga na rede. O emulador desenvolvido, denominado mobSim, foi executado num cluster de grandes dimensões, dado o tamanho e complexidade dos cenários de simulação.In the current world, in which there is a growing trend to use the TCP/IP protocol suite in all types of communication networks, and the number and type of devices using wireless connections is growing, IP mobility of both nodes and networks is of extreme importance. This is the main reason why the scientific community has paid and is paying special attention to the proposal and development of IP mobility solutions. The NEMO Basic Support Protocol, IETF RFC 3963, was developed with the objective of readily allowing transparent network mobility in the current Internet. Nevertheless, the simplicity of this solution is at the basis of its limitations, which severely affect its performance. On the other hand, none of the proposed alternatives is gathering enough consensus of the community. In this thesis, a paradigm shift is proposed, consisting of involving end nodes in the network mobility process. The proposal, named Optimised Mobility for Enhanced Networking, OMEN, establishes the necessary means for informing end nodes of their mobility condition, which can then use existing MIPv6 route optimisation mechanisms in order for them not to be subject to the limitations of RFC 3963. In this way, the problem of deciding which and when to optimise flows is left to the end nodes, which are in the best position to decide. At the same time, mobile routers are freed from all tasks concerning the mobility management of a potentially large number of flows, making them lighter and with lower power requirements. The performed simulations show that the OMEN proposal leads to better performance then existing network mobility solutions, confirming the advantages of the paradigm shift. The performed studies were carried out using a specially built network mobility emulator, in order to overcome the lack of support for this type of mobility and the scalability limitations of existing simulators. The developed emulator, named mobSim, ran in a large cluster, due to the size and complexity of the simulated scenarios.IST-FP6-0384239: CONTENT – Network of Excellence on Content Networks and Services for Home UsersFCT PTDC/EIA –EIA/116173/2009: CoFiMoM - Combate a Incêndios com Multihoming e Mobilidad

Implementation and evaluation of the Shim6 protocol in the Linux kernel

In the changing landscape of the todays Internet, several solutions are under investigation to allow efficient, flexible and scalable multihoming. One of the proposals is shim6, a host-based multihoming solution based on the use of multiple IPv6 addresses on each host. In this work, we first describe the main features of this protocol, then we explain our implementation of shim6, along with the associated security mechanisms in the Linux kernel and, finally, we evaluate its performance. In particular, we analyse the performance impact of the security mechanisms used by shim6 and the impact of shim6 on the performance of end-host systems, especially heavily loaded servers. We conclude by discussing the remaining open issues for a widespread deployment of host-based multihoming techniques such as shim6

Optimizing transmission protocols for enhancement of quality of service in telemedical realtime applications

In der Dissertation mit dem Titel „Optimierung von Übertragungsprotokollen zur Verbesserung der Dienstgüte in telemedizinischen Echtzeitanwendungen“ geht es um die Entwicklung einer Protokollmodifikation für Multipath-TCP zur besseren Unterstützung von telemedizinischen Echtzeitanwendungen über das Internet in einem Szenario zwischen global verteilten Standorten. Das Ziel von redundantem Multipath-TCP (rMPTCP) ist es, mehrere Verbindungen gleichzeitig zu nutzen, um mithilfe von Redundanz Verzögerungsspitzen und Datenverluste auszugleichen und somit die Dienstgüte der Übertragung zu verbessern. Hierbei passt sich das Protokoll den aktuellen Gegebenheiten der Datenverbindung adaptiv an, indem es Redundanz, Leitungsqualität, benötigte Datenübertragungsrate sowie den durch das Netzwerk angebotenen Datendurchsatz in Relation setzt. Anwendungen in der Telemedizin unterscheiden sich in ihren kommunikativen und interaktiven Ausprägungen und damit in ihren Dienstgüteanforderungen. Zu diesem Zweck werden grundlegende Anwendungen in der Telemedizin sowie Spezifizierungen der Dienstgüteanforderungen der anfallenden Datenströme behandelt und klassifiziert. Dies geschieht in Hinblick auf ein zwischen der Universität Duisburg-Essen (UDE) und der Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) laufendes Forschungsszenario. Darauf folgt eine Darlegung von Dienstgüte-Mechanismen im Internet. Darin werden die elementaren Funktionsweisen sowie Möglichkeiten diese zu verbessern beschrieben. Die Übertragungsstrecke zwischen den beiden Universitäten wird entsprechend des Basisszenarios in Hinblick auf verschiedene Dienstgüteparameter mit entsprechenden Messwerkzeugen soweit ausgewertet, dass Gegebenheiten und Probleme identifiziert werden können. Eine Evaluierung der verschiedenen verfügbaren Verbindungen zwischen UDE und UKM dient der Ermittlung einer kombinierten Nutzungsweise und den Möglichkeiten bei einer Mehrfachverbindung. Die Modellierung und Entwicklung der Protokollmodifikation wird unter den vorher hergeleiteten Anforderungen durchgeführt. Es werden die grundsätzlichen mathematischen Zusammenhänge diskutiert und eine Einführung in die Funktionalitäten des Protokolls gegeben. Die Eigenschaften und Funktionen des neuen Protokolls werden modelliert und zusätzliche Hilfsmittel, die für die Anwendung innerhalb des Szenarios benötigt werden entwickelt. Die Funktionalitäten werden in praktischen Versuchen ausgewertet und eine abschließende Beurteilung diskutiert. Das Ergebnis dieser Dissertation ist die Entwicklung einer internetkompatiblen redundanten Protokollerweiterung für Multipath-TCP, die in der Lage ist, sich mithilfe verschiedener Algorithmen auf Situationen im Netzwerk anzupassen und verschiedene Maßnahmen bei Störungen zu ergreifen. Die Protokollerweiterung ist in der Lage, eine Dienstgüteverbesserung in Hinblick auf Verzögerungen sowie Verzögerungsvarianzen für Anwendungen mit „Nahe-Echtzeit“-Anforderungen zu erreichen.In the dissertation entitled "Optimization of Transmission Protocols to Improve Quality of Service in Telemedicine Real-Time Applications", the aim is to develop a protocol modification for Multipath-TCP to improve the support for telemedical real-time applications over the Internet in a scenario between globally distributed locations. The goal of redundant Multipath TCP (rMPTCP) is to use multiple connections at the same time to compensate for delay and data losses by means of redundancy and thus to improve the quality of service of the transmission. The protocol adapts to the current circumstances of the data connection by correlating redundancy, connection quality, required data transmission rate as well as the data throughput offered by the network. Applications in telemedicine differ in their communicative and interactive manifestations and thus in their quality of service requirements. For this purpose, basic applications in telemedicine as well as specifications of the quality requirements of the resulting data streams are treated and classified. This is done with regard to a research scenario running between the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) and the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). It is followed by a presentation of quality of service mechanisms on the Internet. The basic functions as well as ways to improve them are described. The transmission distance between the two universities is evaluated according to the basic scenario with regard to different quality of service parameters with appropriate measuring tools in a way that conditions and problems can be identified. An evaluation of the various available connections between UDE and UKM is used to determine a combined usage and the possibilities for a multiple connection. The modeling and development of the protocol modification is performed under the previously-derived requirements. The basic mathematical connections are discussed and an introduction to the functionalities of the protocol is given. The properties and functions of the new protocol are modeled and additional tools developed for utilization within the scenario are designed. The functionalities are evaluated in practical tests and a final assessment is discussed. The result of this dissertation is the development of an Internet-compatible redundant protocol extension for multipath TCP, which is able to adapt to situations in the network by means of different algorithms and to take various measures in case of disturbances. The protocol extension is capable of achieving an improvement in service quality with regard to delays as well as delay variances for applications with "near real-time" requirements