Locator/ID Separation Protocol Research Articles

Seamless handover for video streaming over an SDN-based Aeronautical Communications Network

There have been increasing interests in applying Software Defined Networking (SDN) to aeronautical communications primarily for air traffic management purposes. From the service passenger communications' point of view, a major goal is to improve passengers' perception of quality of experience on the infotainment services being provided for them. Due to the high speed of aircrafts and the use of multiple radio technologies during different flight phases and across different areas, vertical handovers between these different radio technologies are envisaged. This poses a challenge to maintain the quality of service during such handovers, especially for high bandwidth applications such as video streaming. This paper proposes an SDN-based aeronautical communications architecture consisting of both satellite and terrestrial-based radio technology. In addition, an experimental implementation of the Locator ID Separation Protocol (LISP) protocol with built-in multi-homing capability over the SDN-based architecture was proposed to handle vertical handovers between the satellite and other radio technologies onboard the aircraft. By using both objective and subjective Quality of Experience (QoE) metrics, the simulation experiments show the benefit of combining LISP with SDN to improve the video streaming quality during the handover in the aeronautical communication environment.

Distributed mobility management with ID/locator split network-based for future 5G networks

The challenge to provide seamless mobility in the near future emerges as a key issue. By a brief analysis of the drawbacks of existing mobility management mechanisms, this paper presents the essential reasons why the traditional network model employing the IP protocol cannot provide mobility support for the end-host. This paper produces a distributed mobility management scheme with ID (identification)/locator split network-based, named IDN. It can provide more efficient mobility performance without Triangle Routing. By applying the IDN scheme to the legacy network, the hierarchy of the legacy network can be evolved into one layer ASN architecture instead of 2 layers. A mobility protocol performance analysis model is created, which is applied for a performance comparison between IDN scheme and the other existing mobility protocols. The simulation results show that the IDN scheme can save resources due to elimination of the Triangle Routing up to 18–64%. A qualitative comparison among those main existing network-based approaches is proposed, such as locator/ID separation protocol (LISP) and distributed mobility management (DMM) approaches. The four main weaknesses of host-based mobility management protocols can be overcame by the IDN scheme.

Smart control plane for information centric network-internet service provider networks

The information centric network (ICN) has been widely discussed in current researches. The ICN interoperation with a traditional IP network and caching methods are one of the research topics of interest. For economic reasons, the capability of applying the ICN to internet service providers (ISPs) with various traditional IP protocols already implemented, especially IGP, MPLS, VRF, and TE, does not require any change on the IP network infrastructure. The biggest concern of ISPs is related to their customers’ contents delivery speed. In this paper, we consider ICN caching locations in ISP by using the concept of locator/ID separation protocol (LISP) for interoperation between a traditional IP address and name-based ICN. To be more specific, we propose a new procedure to determine caching locations in the ICN by using the cuckoo search algorithm (CSA) for finding the best caching locations of information chunks. Moreover, we create the smart control plane (SCP) scheme which is an intelligent controlling, managing, and mapping system. Its function is similar to the software defined network concept. We show how the proposed SCP system works in both synthetic small network and real-world big network. Finally, we show and evaluate the performance of our algorithm comparison with the simple search method using the shortest path first algorithm.

A security framework for node-to-node communications based on the LISP architecture

The locator/ID separation protocol (LISP) is a routing architecture that provides new semantics for IP addressing to support communications between peripheral networks of different technologies. Securing the LISP architecture has been investigated in the literature, while securing communications in peripheral networks is left to individual technologies. The authors in this paper advocate the need for a comprehensive solution to secure communications based on LISP. Therefore, the paper introduces a new node-to-node authentication and key agreement protocol. The protocol is formally verified using formal method based on Casper/FDR. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates how to integrate the proposed protocol with existing LISP’s security mechanisms in a form of a security framework.

Programmable Overlays via OpenOverlayRouter

OpenOverlayRouter (OOR) is an open source software router to deploy programmable overlay networks. OOR leverages the Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) to map overlay identifiers to underlay locators, and to dynamically tunnel overlay traffic through the underlay network. LISP overlay state exchange is complemented with NETCONF remote configuration and VXLANGPE encapsulation. OOR aims to offer a flexible, portable, and extensible overlay solution via a user-space implementation available for multiple platforms (Linux, Android, and OpenWrt). In this article, we describe the OOR software architecture and how it overcomes the challenges associated with a user-space LISP implementation. Furthermore, we present an experimental evaluation of OOR performance in relevant scenarios.

A Compact Routing based Mapping System for the Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP)

The Internet and its associated global routing tables are growing at an alarming rate. Will the current routing infrastructure be able to scale itself to sustain such growth? Over the past several years, many efforts have been made to resolve this important issue. This paper offers a novel solution to this serious problem by proposing and presenting an experimental mapping system called Compact Routing based Mapping (CRM). The idea here is to combine the perceived benefits of both Compact Routing and Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol (LISP). In CRM, the critical functions that affect the scalability of the routing system are grounded to the theory of Compact Routing; so that we might overcome the shortcomings of LISP-ALT. We mitigated Compact Routing’s presumption of a static network by reusing LISP’s registration messages and choosing landmarks dynamically based on their capability to aggregate. The key objective of this paper is to provide proof of concept, to give first-hand experience regarding the complicacies that arise with the actual development of such a mapping system. Our work also includes a comprehensive comparison between CRM and LISP-ALT. The results suggest that, CRM would be feasible in the current Internet if deployed and it would be far less expensive than LISP-ALT.

On the scalability of LISP mappings caches

The Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) limits the growth of the Default-Free Zone routing tables by creating a highly aggregatable and quasi-static Internet core. However, LISP pushes the forwarding state to edge routers whose timely operation relies on caching of location to identity bindings. In this paper we develop an analytical model to study the asymptotic scalability of the LISP cache. Under the assumptions that (i) long-term popularity can be modeled as a Generalized Zipf distribution, independent of Internet and LISP site growth and (ii) temporal locality is predominantly determined by long-term popularity, we find that LISP cache miss rate scales O(1) with respect to the amount of prefixes (Internet growth) and users (LISP site growth). We validate the model and discuss the accuracy of our assumptions using several one-day-long packet traces.

LISP: a southbound SDN protocol?

The Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) splits current IP addresses overlapping semantics of identity and location into two separate names-paces. Since its inception the protocol has gained considerable attention from both industry and academia, motivating several new use cases to be proposed. Despite its inherent control-data decoupling and the abstraction and flexibility it introduces into the network, little has been said about the role of LISP on the SDN paradigm. In this article we try to fill that gap and analyze if LISP can be used for SDN. The article presents a systematic analysis of the relevant SDN requirements and how such requirements can be fulfilled by the LISP architecture and components. This results in a set of benefits (e.g. incremental deployment, scalability, flexibility, interoperability, and inter-domain support) and drawbacks (e.g. extra headers and some initial delay) of using LISP for SDN. In order to validate the analysis, we have built and tested a prototype using the LISPmob open-source implementation.

Mobility Support Architecture in Locator-ID Separation based Future Internet using Proxy Mobile IPv6

Of several approaches for future Internet, separating two properties of IP address into locator and identifier, is being considered as a highly likely solution. IETF's LISP (Locator ID Separation Protocol) is proposed for this architecture. In particular, the LISP model easily allows for device mobility through simple update of information at MS (Mapping Server) without a separate protocol. In recent years, some of the models supporting device mobility using such LISP attributes have emerged; however, most of them have the limitation for seamless mobility support due to the frequent MS information updates and the time required for the updates. In this paper, PMIPv6 (Proxy Mobile IPv6) model is applied for mobility support in LISP model. PMIPv6 is a method that can support mobility based on network without the help of device; thus, this we define anew the behavior of functional modules (LMA, MAG and MS) to fit this model to the LISP environment and present specifically procedures of device registration, data transfer, route optimization and handover. In addition, our approach improves the communication performance using three tunnels identified with locators between mobile node and corresponding node and using a route optimized tunnel between MN's MAG and CN's MAG. Finally, it allows for seamless mobility by designing a sophisticated handover procedure.

A Lease Algorithm to Maintain Strong Mapping Cache Consistency

In the Locator/ID separation protocol (LISP) network, mapping caches are usually used in Ingress tunnel routers to cache recently used identifier-to-locator mappings of remote hosts. When the original mapping in the Egress tunnel router changes, it introduces the problem of cache consistency. In general, the mapping cache supports weak cache consistency by using the time-to-live (TTL) mechanism. However, a stale mapping could lead the packets to a wrong destination. In this paper, we first evaluate the performance of TTL by trace-driven simulation and the results indicate that maintaining strong mapping cache consistency has become an indispensable mechanism in the LISP network. Then we design the lease algorithm to realize the strong consistency and propose analytical models to decide the lease duration based on the state space overhead and the control message overhead, respectively. We present numerical results to estimate the mapping change frequency, to show the impact of different parameters on the lease duration and to explore the relationship between the state space and control message overhead. Finally, we do the trace-driven simulation to compare the lease algorithm to polling-every-time and invalidation in terms of the state space and control messages. The lease algorithm with an appropriate lease duration can balance the state space and the control message overhead while providing strong mapping cache consistency.

Lcast: Software-defined inter-domain multicast

Traditionally, efficient inter-domain data delivery may be implemented either as a network or as an application layer multicast service. However, while the former has seen little uptake due to prohibitive deployment costs the latter is widely used today, but often without a minimum guaranteed performance. In this paper we present Lcast, a network-layer single-source multicast framework designed to merge the robustness and efficiency of IP multicast with the configurability and low deployment cost of application-layer overlays. The architecture involves no end-host changes and only requires the upgrading of a small set of routers to support the Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP), an incrementally deployable enhancement to the current global routing infrastructure. Content distribution over the Internet’s core is done by means of a router overlay while within domains, end-hosts interface with Lcast using conventional multicast protocols. The overlay’s scalability and topological configurability is sustained by logically centralizing group management. We illustrate the versatility of our solution by designing and assessing the scalability and performance of three management strategies for low latency content distribution. Our analysis is based on large scale simulations supported by realistic user behavior and Internet-like network topologies. The results show Lcast’s low management overhead and ability to optimize delivery to meet various operational constraints. Notably, we find that it can deliver traffic with latencies close to unicast ones, independent of overlay size.

Optimal Cache Timeout for Identifier-to-Locator Mappings with Handovers

The locator/ID separation protocol (LISP) proposed for addressing the scalability issue of the current Internet has gained much interest. LISP separates the identifier and locator roles of IP addresses by end point identifiers (EIDs) and locators, respectively. In particular, while EIDs are used in the application and transport layers for identifying nodes, locators are used in the network layer for locating nodes in the network topology. In LISP, packets are tunneled from ingress tunnel routers (ITRs) to egress tunnel routers in a map-and-encapsulation manner. For this purpose, an ITR caches on demand some mappings between EIDs and locators. Since hosts roam from place to place, however, their EID-to-locator mappings change accordingly. Thus, an ITR cannot store a mapping permanently but maintains for every mapping a timer whose default value is set to a given cache timeout. If the cache timeout for a mapping is too short, an ITR frequently queries the mapping system (control plane), resulting in a high traffic load on the control plane. On the other hand, if the cache timeout for a mapping is too long, the mapping could be outdated, resulting in packet loss and associated overheads. Therefore, it is desirable to set appropriate cache timeout for mapping items. In this paper, we analytically determine the optimal cache timeout for EID-to-locator mappings cached at ITRs to minimize the control plane load while remaining efficient for mobility. The results presented here provide valuable insights and guidelines for deploying LISP.

Caching Locator/ID mappings: An experimental scalability analysis and its implications

Victim of its own success, the current Internet is facing scalability issues that lead the research community to explore alternative architectures. In particular, the Locator/ID Split paradigm, based on the idea of separating the identity from the location of end-systems, is gaining momentum and seems to be the most promising candidate for the future Internet architecture. A critical component of any Locator/ID Split approach, from a performance and resources consumption perspective, as well as from a security point of view, is the cache. The cache is meant to temporarily store mappings, i.e., the bindings between identifiers and locations, in order to provide routers with the knowledge of where to forward packets.Taking as reference protocol LISP (Locator/ID Separation Protocol), the most successful proposal currently under discussion at the IETF, this paper presents a thorough analysis of such a component, including the implications of policies to increase the level of security, based on real packet-level traces. Our results prove that even a timeout as short as 60s provides a high hit ratio and that the impact of using security policies is small. Furthermore, a thorough analysis of the scalability of such a component is provided along with the analysis of which class of applications contributes the major fraction of cache-misses.

LISP Mapping Resolution Impacts on Initiating Bidirection-al End-to-End Communications

In order to solve scalability problems of routing and addressing architec-tures of the current Internet, Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) has been proposed. LISP requires mapping resolutions between a locator and an ID and such resolutions may impact on communications. In this paper, we empirically show its impact on in-itiating end-to-end bidirectional communications based upon actual LISP environment. We then discuss solutions to overcome impacts and imply that Data Probe may be a solution by applying it only to DNS queries, responses, TCP SYN and SYN+ACK.

A Network-Based Localized Mobility Approach for Locator/ID Separation Protocol

Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) is an efficient proposal for solving the severe routing scalability problems existing in the current IPv4-based Internet and the future IPv6-based Internet. However, the basic LISP architecture does not specify how to support mobility in detail. As mobility is a fundamental issue faced by the future Internet, LISP mobility architecture (LISP-MN) was proposed recently to extend LISP to support mobility. Nevertheless, LISP-MN is a host-based mobility approach which requires software changes in end systems. To some extent, such a design breaks the primary design principles of LISP, which is a network-based protocol and requires no modification to the hosts. In addition, LISP-MN faces the same inherent problems as other host-based approaches (e.g., MIPv4, MIPv6), such as handover latency, packet loss, and signalling overhead. To solve the above problems, this paper proposes MobileID, which is a network-based localized mobility approach for LISP. In our design, a mobile node is not aware of its mobility and does not participate in handover signalling. Instead, the network takes the responsibility for managing mobility on behalf of the mobile node. We present a general overview of MobileID architecture, and introduce the detailed protocol operations in terms of the basic MobileID handover process and the route optimization procedures. Furthermore, we describe a MobileID analytic model, and compare MobileID handover performance with three representative mobility solutions, i.e., LISP-MN, MIPv6 and PMIPv6. Numerical results show the superior performance of MobileID. The handover latency of MobileID is much lower than those of LISP-MN and MIPv6, and it becomes lower than that of PMIPv6 in case of a long wireless link delay.

Implementing the Locator/ID Separation Protocol: Design and experience

During the last few years, the network research community and the industry have been working on the design of an alternate Internet Routing Architecture aiming at solving the issues arising in the current architecture. It is widely accepted that applying a Locator/ID Separation paradigm would result in a more scalable and flexible architecture. As the name suggests, in Locator/ID Separation the identification (ID) and the localization (locator) of end-points is separated, while the link between the ID and the Locator(s) is ensured by what is called the mapping system. In this paper, we present OpenLISP, an open source implementation of LISP (Locator/ID Separation Protocol). LISP is a Locator/Identifier separation solution based on the map-and-encap approach, which has the merit of being incrementally deployable, hence, falling in the category of dirty-slate approaches. OpenLISP is not a merely implementation of the LISP specifications; it also defines the mapping sockets, a socket-based abstraction making the Data Plane and the Control Plane implementations independent. The evaluation provided in this paper shows the limited impact on the protocol stack performance compared to traditional non-encapsulated traffic.

LISP-TREE: A DNS Hierarchy to Support the LISP Mapping System

During the last years, some operators have expressed concerns about the continued growth of the BGP routing tables in the default-free zone. Several proposed solutions for this issue are centered around the idea of separating the network node's identifier from its topological location. Among the existing proposals, the Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) has seen important development and implementation effort. LISP relies on a mapping system to provide bindings between locators and identifiers. The mapping system is a critical protocol component, and its design is still an open issue. In this paper we present a new mapping system: LISP-TREE. It is based on DNS and has a similar hierarchical topology: blocks of identifiers are assigned to the levels of the hierarchy by following the current IP address allocation policies. We also present measurement-driven simulations of mapping systems' performance, assuming a deployment of LISP in the current Internet.