Implementation and Performance Analysis of Mobile Handoff Process on OpenFlow-based Wi-Fi Network

Abstract

Research in communication networks has its limits due to the problems of supply frequency and equipment. To overcome this problem, open source can be the solution to build a helpful test bed for research or academic purposes. Open source networks can be developed using a Software Defined Network (SDN) which has been continuously developed due an enormous number of installed base equipment and protocols that are inflexible, predefined, and fixed since SDN offers a flexible, dynamic, and programmable functionality of network systems. By using OpenFlow as its protocol, we can program the network flow in a flow table on different switches and routers. This research approches an OpenFlow-based Wi-Fi environment using an OpenFlow-based Access Point (OFAP) and an OpenFlow controller. Each OFAP is deployed in two different rooms and several experiments were performed to evaluate handoff delay. The result of these experiments shows that an OpenFlow-based network delivers a more stable process than a traditional network because of the installed flows that are given to each packet. However, the discovered value needs to be examined further due to a better mechanism for installed flows. The handoff delay between OFAPs is 24% faster than the handoff delay between a traditional AP with an average of 79.9 miliseconds. By using this system, we believe it could deliver a high performance network and an increased reliability for real-time traffic over WLAN, by reducing the handoff delay compared to a classical Wi-Fi environment.