Multiple level mobility anchor point selection schemes in HMIPv6

Abstract

Hierarchical Mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6) introduces a mobility anchor point (MAP) that localizes the signaling traffic and hence reduces the handoff latency. In addition to processing binding update messages from mobile nodes (MNs) on behalf of MNs' home agents (HAs), the MAP performs data traffic tunneling destined to or originated from MNs, both of which will burden the MAP substantially as the network size grows. To provide scalable and robust mobile Internet services to a large number of visiting MNs, multiple MAPs will be deployed. In such an environment, how to select an appropriate MAP has a vital effect on the overall network performance. In this paper, we propose the multiple level MAP selection scheme in the form of binary tree structure. Then, we give the optimal threshold value calculation formula, which is used to select the MAP for MN. We compare its performance quantitatively in terms of signaling overhead. It can be shown that the multiple level MAP selection scheme is better than the furthest and the nearest MAP selection schemes in some area, since the this scheme can select the serving MAP depending on the MN's mobility.