An Agent-Based Architecture for Resource Reservation in Mobile IP Networks

Abstract

With the development of Internet technologies and services and the miniaturization of handheld computers, requirements to support computer mobility and nomadic users are greatly needed. Besides mobility support, in the multimedia world QoS (Quality of Services) transmission is also highly desired. In fixed networks, the resource ReSerVation Protocol establishes and maintains a reservation state to ensure a given QoS level between the sender and receiver. In wireless networks, host mobility leads to handoff between different domains of access point. As a result, the original route path is changed, and RSVP does not consider this in its original design. The authors propose a new resource reservation method for wireless networks using the concept of active networks. They design a set of RSVP agents that can be distributed to routers dynamically. The resource reservation of mobile nodes is managed and maintained by these RSVP agents. The proposed protocol allows reserved flows for mobile users to continue without disruption when performing handoff. To evaluate the performance, the authors use the network simulator-2 (ns2) to compare their methods with some related research. The simulation results show that the blocking probability and forced termination probability are decreased by using the proposed method. Furthermore, improvements are achieved without sacrificing efficiency.