Leveraging PMIPv6 with SDN

Mobility management in wireless networks has been one of the hot research areas in the last decade. PMIPv6 is a network-based layer 3 mobility management protocol, standardized by IETF. It is considered as a promising solution for resolving issues related to the layer 3 mobility management. However, handover latency in PMIPv6 is not acceptable for real time applications. In this paper we introduce OF-PMIPv6; in which OpenFlow controller takes care of all the control signaling and mobility algorithms on the behalf of Mobile Access Gateway (MAG). This results in a simpler MAG with reduced handover latency. OpenFlow is a standard which runs on network devices (e.g. switches, routers etc.) and enable them to communicate with a central server (OF controller). In OF-PMIPv6, the MAGs preform control signaling with LMA through the OpenFlow controller, whereas data communication takes place directly between the MAG and LMA. In this paper we present the detailed architecture of OF-PMIPv6 and proactive handover scheme. Towards the end, analytical analysis based comparison of handover latency in PMIPv6 and proposed OF-PMIPv6 is presented.