Design and evaluation of host identity protocol (HIP) simulation framework for INET/OMNeT++

Abstract

Host Identity Protocol (HIP) decouples IP addresses from higher layer Internet applications by proposing a new, cryptographic namespace for host identities. HIP has great potential in means of mobility and multihoming support, security, and performance, such making it quite a promising candidate as the basic architecture of the Future Internet. However, HIP is still in development and very early standardization phase: the protocol is continuously evolving due to its adaptivity to functional changes and extensions. Aiming to completely understand the protocol's behavior, its applicability to wide-scale usage and to analyze current and future improvements and enhancements, it is crucial to develop a proper, RFC-compliant, extensible simulation model for Host Identity Protocol. In this paper we present the structural design and the functional details of our HIP simulation framework (called HIPSim++) integrated into the INET/OMNeT++ discrete event simulation environment. In order to evaluate the accuracy and preciseness of HIPSim++, we designed a real-life HIP testbed and compared the simulation outcomes with the reference results obtained from this HIP testing architecture. Our analysis show excellent accuracy and consistent operation of the simulation framework in terms of handover metrics (latency, packet loss, throughput) and behavior when compared to the real-life experiences of the HIP testbed.