Detail View

The mobility management is important issue in network system. Recently, with the rapid growth in the number of mobile subscribers and mobile devices, the demand for the efficiency mobility management system is becoming one of the important issues in the mobility management. The network traffic is able to separate control and data traffic. Software Defined Networking (SDN) decouples the control and data planes of a network by relying on simple functions and there are many attempts to enhance the mobility management by taking the advantages. 

Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) is a typical network-based mobility management protocol, PMIPv6 network entities process the signaling process instead of the mobile nodes (MNs). If network is changed, it is not influenced to the MN. However, PMIPv6 has several weak points. The control and data packets are shared the same network entities for packet delivery and process. It prevents the separation of the control and the data planes. In addition, IP tunneling inherent to PMIPv6 imposes excessive overhead for the network entities.

In this thesis, mobility enhancements of PMIPv6 are presented in terms of data structure and a new mobility scheme based on OpenFlow architecture. The proposed data structure contains information of flow path and MN information. OpenFlow-based Mobility Management scheme in Software Defined Networking is proposed to adapt PMIPv6 to the OpenFlow architecture for supporting mobility management over SDN. 

PMIPv6 architecture is assumed that is used on the distributed network. However, SDN is centralized network system. Thus, PMIPv6 functions and data structures need to be reconstructed. The PMIPv6 functions and data structures are converted to the mobility management entity (MME) at the SDN controller for adapting centralized network system. Mobility-related signaling between a controller and switches is performed through the dedicated secure channel, and all of the data packets is sent normally in accordance with the flow table of the OpenFlow switches. Consequently, the proposed scheme eliminates IP tunneling and separates the data and the control planes. 

Chapter 1 Introduction	1
1.1 Background	1
1.2 Proxy Mobile IPv6	2
1.2.1 Weaknesses of PMIPv6	3
1.3 Software Defined Networking	3
1.4 Network-based Mobility management and SDN	4
1.5 Approaches	4
1.6 Organization of the thesis	5
Chapter 2 Related Works	7
2.1 IP Mobility Protocols	7
2.1.1 Host-based Mobility	8
2.1.1.1 Mobile IPv6	8
2.1.2 Network-based Mobility	10
2.1.2.1 Proxy Mobile IPv6	10
2.2 OpenFlow Protocol	14
2.2.1 OpenFlow Components	15
2.2.2 OpenFlow Switch	17
2.2.3 OpenFlow Ports	18
2.2.4 OpenFlow Tables	19
2.2.4.1 Pipeline Processing	19
2.2.4.2 Flow Table	21
2.2.4.3 Matching	22
2.2.4.4 Table-miss	23
2.2.4.5 Flow Removal	24
2.2.4.6 Instructions	25
2.2.4.7 Actions	26
2.2.5 Packet Processing	27
2.3 Network-based Mobility Protocol on the SDN	28
2.3.1 Mobility Management Framework in Software Defined Networks	28
2.3.2 A Solution for IP Mobility Support in Software Defined Networks	29
2.3.3 An Adaptation of Proxy Mobile IPv6 to OpenFlow Architecture over Software Defined Networking	31
Chapter 3 OpenFlow-based Mobility Management scheme in Software Defined Networking	35
3.1 Introduction	35
3.2 OpenFlow-based Mobility Management scheme in Software Defined Networking	36
3.1.1 Architecture	36
3.2.4.1 OpenFlow-enabled Switch	37
3.2.4.1 Mobility Management Entity	38
3.1.2 Data Structures in the MME	38
3.2.4.1 Binding Cache	38
3.2.4.1 GW-HNP Mapping Table	39
3.2.4.1 Flow Matrix	39
3.2.2 Control Plane	42
3.2.3 Data Plane	45
3.2.4 Basic Operations	48
3.2.4.1 Before Mobility Service	48
3.2.4.2 Registration to MME	48
3.2.4.3 Intra-domain Handover	50
3.3 Performance Evaluation	51
3.3.1 Network Model	51
3.3.2 Mobility Model	53
3.3.3 PMIPv6 and OpenFlow Messages	54
3.3.4 Cost Modeling	55
3.3.4.1 Proxy Mobile IPv6	56
3.3.4.2 OpenFlow-based PMIPv6-C	57
3.3.4.3 OpenFlow-based Mobility Management Scheme	58
3.3.5 Handover Latency	59
3.3.5.1 Basic Handover Process	59
3.3.5.2 PMIPv6 Handover Latency	61
3.3.5.3 OPMIPv6-C Handover Latency	61
3.3.5.4 OpenFlow-based Mobility Management Scheme	62
3.3.6 Cost Analysis Results	63
3.3.6.1 Signaling Cost	63
3.3.6.2 Packet Delivery Cost	65
3.3.6.2 Total Cost	66
3.3.7 Handover Latency Analysis	67
Chapter 4 Conclusions	70