Autonomic Handover Management for Heterogeneous Networks in a Future Internet Context: A Survey

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Future Internet (FI) scenarios envisage ubiquitous broadband coverage and seamless mobility, enabling the availability of personalized network connectivity at all places and with a high quality of service (QoS). In such a heterogeneous and complex environment, vertical handover (VHO) management is key for achieving the connectivity objectives, but also presents several challenges. In surveying this topic, this paper takes a direction that extends the state-of-the-art: By incorporating concepts of autonomic network management (ANM), in particular the self-management and cognitive functionalities therein, to VHO management, this paper sheds new light to VHO operations from an ANM point of view, encompassing FI environments and the emerging fifth generation networks. In doing so, the survey identifies the main concepts and provides a taxonomy of relevant architectural components. Based on this taxonomy, a number of important autonomic features are identified, each one promoting the system’s self-optimization along a certain direction toward the overall enhancement of the VHO operations. Another contribution of this paper is the consideration of robustness in VHO decision making (i.e., achieving stable decisions under uncertainty) and a discussion of the relation between robustness factors and the autonomic features previously introduced. The general concepts developed in this paper are applied to representative state-of-the-art handover management solutions with autonomic characteristics. These specific solutions are presented, analyzed, and correlated according to the proposed taxonomy and criteria, culminating to conclusions that provide useful insights toward future, further enhanced solutions.