Multi-homing Support Research Articles

Fast Uplink Bandwidth Testing for Internet Users

Access bandwidth measurement is crucial to emerging Internet applications for network-aware content delivery. However, today’s bandwidth testing services (BTSes) are slow and costly—the tests take a long time to run, consume a great deal of data usage, and usually require large-scale test server deployments. The inefficiency and high cost of BTSes root in their methodologies that use excessive temporal/spatial redundancies for combating noises in Internet measurement. In particular, compared to downlink BTSes, uplink BTSes are subject to more severe performance problems and technical challenges. This paper presents FastUpBTS to make uplink BTS fast and cheap while maintaining high accuracy. The key idea is to strategically accommodate and exploit the noise rather than repetitively and exhaustively suppress the impact of noise. This is achieved by a novel statistical sampling framework termed fuzzy rejection sampling. We build FastUpBTS as an end-to-end BTS that implements fuzzy rejection sampling based on memorization-reinforced throughput denoising, data-driven server selection, and informed multi-homing support. Our evaluation shows that with only 30 test servers, FastUpBTS achieves the same level of accuracy compared to the state-of-the-art BTS () that deploys <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sim$</tex-math> </inline-formula> 16,000 servers. Most importantly, FastUpBTS makes bandwidth tests 5.4 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$</tex-math> </inline-formula> faster and 6.8 <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times$</tex-math> </inline-formula> more data-efficient.

A Novel Handover Mechanism of PMIPv6 for the Support of Multi-Homing Based on Virtual Interface

The Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) is a network-based accessibility managing protocol. Because of PMIPv6’s network-based approach, it accumulates the following additional benefits, such as discovery, efficiency. Nonetheless, PMIPv6 has inadequate sustenance for multi-homing mechanisms, since every mobility session must be handled through a different binding cache entry (BCE) at a local mobility anchor (LMA) according to the PMIPv6 specification, and thus PMIPv6 merely permits concurrent admittance for the mobile node (MN) which is present in the multi-homing concept. Consequently, when a multi-homed MN interface is detached from its admittance network, the LMA removes its moving part from the BCE, and the current flows connected with the apart interface are not transmitted to the multi-homed MN, even if a more multi-homed MN interface is still linked to another access network. A superior multi-homing support proposal is proposed to afford flawless mobility among the interfaces for a multi-homed MN to address this problem. The projected method can shift an application from a disconnected interface of a multi-home MN to an attached interface using the PMIPv6 fields of Auxiliary Advertisement of Neighbor Detection (AAND).

Multihoming Support in Mobile IP Networks: Progress, Challenges and Solutions

IP network mobility has already emerged as a key domain of wireless IP networking. The network research community has taken great interest and paid considerable attention to advance IP mobility applications. Accordingly, different advanced networking mechanisms have been considered to optimize IP network mobility. One of these mechanisms is network multi-homing which has been the focus of many IP mobility studies within the academic research and IETF communities. The combination of network mobility and multi-homing has turned into a conceivable approach to effectively deal with expanding system availability and improving the performance of mobile IP network. There are many studies proposed during the recent years to realize network multi-homing for the Network Mobility Basic Support (NEMO BS) protocol, a leading IETF IP mobility protocol. This paper studies and reviews up-to-date research works in supporting multi-homing for NEMO-based mobile IP networks. The aim is to investigate the current state of multi-homing support for NEMO networks and outline recent research directions in this regard.

ROI-Based Video Transmission in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks With Multi-Homed Terminals

We consider the problem of delivering region of interest (ROI)-coded mobile video streams using limited radio resources. Under the conditions of limited bandwidth and time-varying channel status, the goal is to optimize the transmission latency, while ensuring the quality of the ROI parts. Multi-homing support enables the terminals to establish multiple connections for transmission performance improvement. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for ROI-based video transmission in heterogeneous wireless networks with multi-homed terminals. The framework contains the modules of ROI detector and frame splitter, where macroblocks are categorized based on ROI detection and encapsulated into transforming units. It also includes a channel monitor that keeps track of the status of each communication path and sends feedback signals to the streaming controller for packet-scheduling control; a deep learning method is proposed for channel status prediction. To address the delivery problem, we propose a scheduling approach based on the formulated network model and the rate-distortion model. The scheduling method makes a tradeoff between the transmission delay and the distortion. It also guarantees that packets with ROI content are delivered on paths with sufficient bandwidths and low loss rates. Through comparisons with other scheduling methods, we find that the proposed scheme outperforms the other scheduling methods in terms of improving the quality (peak signal-to-noise ratio), balancing the end-to-end delay, and maintaining the playback fluency.

Delay-Constrained High Definition Video Transmission in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks with Multi-Homed Terminals

Delivering high-quality mobile video with the limited radio resources is challenging due to the time-varying channel status and stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. Multi-homing support enables mobile terminals to establish multiple simultaneous associations for enhancing transmission performance. In this paper, we study the multi-homed communication of delay-constrained High Definition (HD) video in heterogeneous wireless networks. The low-delay encoded HD video streaming consists exclusively of Intra (I) and Predicted (P) frames. In the capacity-limited wireless networks, it is highly possible the large-size I frames experience deadline violations and induce severe quality degradations. To address the challenging problem, we propose a novel scheduling framework dubbed del A y S tringent CO ded T ransmission (ASCOT) that featured by frame-level data protection and allocation over multiple wireless access networks . First, we perform online video distortion estimation to simulate multi-homed transmission impairments according to the feedback channel status and input video data. Second, we control the frame protection level by adapting the Forward Error Correction (FEC) coding redundancy and video data allocation to achieve target quality. The performance of the proposed ASCOT is evaluated through semi-physical emulations in Exata using real-time H.264 video streaming. Experimental results show that ASCOT outperforms existing transmission schemes in improving the video PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio), reducing the end-to-end delay, and increasing the goodput. Or conversely, ASCOT achieves the same video quality with approximately $20$ percent bandwidth conservation .

Providing explicit congestion control and multi-homing support for content-centric networking transport

Content-centric networking (CCN) adopts a receiver-driven, hop-by-hop transport approach that facilitates in-network caching, which in turn leads to multiple sources and multiple paths for transferring content. In such a case, keeping a single round trip time (RTT) estimator for a multi-path flow is insufficient as each path may experience different round trip times. To solve this problem, it has been proposed to use multiple RTT estimators to predict network condition. In this paper, we examine an alternative approach to this problem, CHoPCoP, which utilizes explicit congestion control to cope with the multiple-source, multiple-path situation. In addition, a parallelized version of CHoPCoP, pCHoPCoP, is designed to support bandwidth aggregation on multi-homed hosts. We have implemented CHoPCoP/pCHoPCoP on the ORBIT testbed and conducted experiments under various network and traffic settings. The evaluation shows that CHoPCoP can effectively deal with congestion in the multipath environment, and pCHoPCoP can maximize the network utilization for a multi-homed host.

A Multihoming Clustering Algorithm for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Clustering in vehicular ad hoc networks is an effective approach to make dynamic wireless vehicular sensor networks more manageable and stable. To make vehicle clustering applicable everywhere regardless of the provided infrastructure, vehicles must rely only on themselves and must not take any supporting services, such as location or external communication services, for granted. In this paper, we propose a new clustering metric and a clustering algorithm with multihoming support. It relies only on the vehicle's ability to send and receive wireless packets which identify the vehicle relationship. Clusters are created with redundant connections between nodes to increase the communication reliability in case of topological changes and the cluster creation process is also inverted compared to other algorithms. The presented solution is verified and compared to MOBIC with the use of ns-3 and SUMO simulation tools. Simulation results have confirmed the expected behavior and show that our algorithm achieves better node connectivity and cluster stability than the former.

Beyond the separation of identifier and locator: Building an identity-based overlay network architecture for the Future Internet

The Internet is continuously evolving from a static, host-based, uniquely attached node model to a mobile, host-free node model with the possibility of multiple attachment points to the network. However, the current Internet was not designed to support this type of workload because of its strict addressing mechanism. Thus, the Future Internet promotes the introduction of new architectures that provide the decoupling of identification and location. Moreover, new technologies, like cloud computing and Internet of Things, raise the necessity for a finer granularity of network nodes. Furthermore, the huge number of devices connected to the Internet and their finer granularity impose the necessity of flexible naming and, thus, integrated discovery mechanisms. In this paper we present an architecture that decouples the identification and location by using identities to identify the network nodes and moving from a host-to-host to a fine-grained process-to-process view of the network. Together with the mobility and multi-homing support, it also provides integrated discovery, flexible naming, and integrated security features. Finally, we analyze the architecture to discuss its performance and compare it with other (existing) approaches.

Stochastic MCDM Framework Over Converged Infrastructure

Service unification and application integration have brought about vendors, network operators, service providers, car- riers, businesses and infrastructures over a platform while offering the business plans, presenting solution packages, proposing virtualization strategies and outsourcing the resources whereas promising an all Internet Protocol (IP) setup. Diverse business goals from distinctive providers alongside the technology merger and service unification in addition to dynamic border traffic management issues introduce more complexity over such platforms. A decision-making frame- work for handling the border traffic management issues at private public network with multi homing support is presented. Augmented Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) theory addresses the qualitative entities while constructing the structural hierarchy of goals, criteria, sub criteria and alternatives. Inter/Intra-domain knowledge over different planes (service, control and transport) is modeled by using ontology. Blending ontology with Bayesian captures uncertainty over the planes. A simple use-case is presented over the test-bed to validate the proposed solution. The system offers higher throughput with lower call/session/request drop at the cost of an add-on delay.

Performance Analysis of Probabilistic Multipath Transmission of Video Streaming Traffic over Multi-Radio Wireless Devices

Popular smart wireless devices become equipped with multiple radio interfaces. Multihoming support can be enabled to allow for multiple simultaneous associations with heterogeneous networks. In this study, we focus on video streaming traffic and propose analytical approaches to evaluate the packet-level and call-level performance of a multipath transmission scheme, which sends video traffic bursts over multiple available channels in a probabilistic manner. A probability generation function (PGF) and z-transform method is applied to derive the PGF of packet delay and any arbitrary moment in general. Particularly, we can obtain the average delay, delay jitter, and delay outage probability. The essential characteristics of video traffic are taken into account, such as deterministic burst intervals, highly dynamic burst length, and batch arrivals of transmission packets. The video substream traffic resulting from the probabilistic flow splitting is characterized by means of zero-inflated models. Further, the call-level performance, in terms of flow blocking probability and system throughput, is evaluated with a three-dimensional Markov process and compared with that of an always-best access selection. The numerical and simulations results demonstrate the effectiveness of our analysis framework and the performance gain of multipath transmission.

A Novel Mobility and Multihoming Support Scheme for Locator/Identifier Separation Networks

A Novel Mobility and Multihoming Support Scheme for Locator/Identifier Separation Networks

Radio Resource Management with Proportional Rate Constraint in the Heterogeneous Networks

We study the radio resource management (RRM) in orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) involved heterogeneous networks, to maximize the system sum-rate under the proportional user rate constraint. An analytical model which reflects the network access features is presented. Allowing multi-homing access and resource element sharing, the RRM problem can be formulated as a linear programming (LP) problem, and the optimal solution provides upper-bound performance. In order to analyze the network selection criterion, we consider an approximated RRM problem with average resource allocations. Two different multi-homing formulations are used, and both are proven to have the same solution, where the network selection is related to the users' rate ratios between different networks. Then, we propose a low complexity suboptimal RRM algorithm, which is composed of a basic part without multi-homing access and a supplementary part with multi-homing support. The basic part makes single network selection and resource allocations. The network selection algorithm is designed based on the criterion found in the approximated problem. After network selection, an efficient resource allocation algorithm is utilized in the OFDMA network, which can employ the multi-user time and frequency diversity well. If multi-homing is allowed, the supplementary part selects the multi-homing users and reallocates partial resources to further improve the performance. Our simulation results show that the proposed suboptimal algorithm can achieve considerable gains over the previous schemes with minor performance degradation compared with the optimal solution.

Optimized traffic flow assignment in multi-homed, multi-radio mobile hosts

Multi-radio mobile communication devices are increasingly gaining market share due to the diversity of currently deployed and continuously emerging radio access technologies. Multi-homing support in multi-radio terminals, i.e., simultaneous use of two or more radio interfaces, provides improved user experience through increase in available bandwidth capacity and reliability of wireless access. Furthermore, optimized assignment of application traffic flows to available interfaces and radio access bearer services contributes to economic and power consumption efficiency. We study the problem of traffic flow assignment in a mobile node, multi-homed through a set of different technology radio interfaces. We provide an analytical formulation for the problem and prove its hardness through transformation from the Multiple Knapsack Problem with Assignment Restrictions. Problem solutions are approximated with a heuristic algorithm that is based on local search and is characterized by efficient execution times for a wide set of realistic problem sizes. The quality of approximation is rather satisfactory and is evaluated through comparison of heuristic and exact solutions for a large set of randomly generated problem instances. Moreover, an evaluation of the approach through simulation supports these findings and provides an estimation of the associated mobility management overhead that is limited and allows real deployment of the decision mechanism.

MILSA: A New Evolutionary Architecture for Scalability, Mobility, and Multihoming in the Future Internet

Many challenges to the Internet including global routing scalability have drawn significant attention from both industry and academia, and have generated several new ideas for the next generation. MILSA (Mobility and Multihoming supporting Identifier Locator Split Architecture) and related enhancements are designed to address the naming, addressing, and routing scalability challenges, provide mobility and multihoming support, and easy transition from the current Internet. In this paper, we synthesize our research into a multiple-tier realm-based framework and present the fundamental principles behind the architecture. Through detailed presentation of these principles and different aspects of our architecture, the underlying design rationale is justified. We also discuss how our proposal can meet the IRTF RRG design goals. As an evolutionary architecture, MILSA balances the high-level long-run architecture design with ease of transition considerations. Additionally, detailed evaluation of the current inter-domain routing system and the achievable improvements deploying our architecture is presented that reveals the roots of the current difficulties and helps to shape our deployment strategy.

SCTP multihoming provisioning in converged IP-based multimedia environment

The latest evolution and successful deployment of different access technologies have resulted in end-users having the ability of combining different fixed and wireless technologies into a superior network service. Increasingly bandwidth-hungry multimedia applications are the first to utilize all benefits that multihomed user terminals offer in a way of connection persistence, reliability and fault tolerance, seamless handovers between points of attachments (PoA) and bandwidth aggregation. Stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) is, considering the advantages of integrated multihoming support, possible bandwidth aggregation and high reliability in addition to other attractive features like multistreaming, partial reliability and optional unordered delivery, a viable transport protocol for provisioning of demanding services in the converged IP-based multimedia environment with guaranteed operator-grade reliability and quality. But despite numerous advantages, the use of SCTP is still mainly limited to operators’ services, while end-user terminals have still not yet adopted SCTP as a common transport protocol. As we point out in this article, this is mainly due to widely deployed network address translation (NAT) and firewall (FW) middleboxes and very common use of default routing at the end-user terminals, which results in issues at setting up and maintaining of a fully operational multihomed SCTP association. In this article we introduce two novel solutions that overcome these issues with the use of NAT/firewall NSIS signaling layer protocol (NATFW NSLP). First solution relies on dynamic address reconfiguration SCTP extension and the second one on SCTP endpoints’ routing table synchronization. Interface between NATFW NSLP and SCTP has been designed and implemented in Linux environment, using Linux kernel SCTP (LKSCTP). Test results clearly show the benefits of our approach with a successful deployment of a resilient multihomed SCTP association in distributed NAT environment. Single point of failure is successfully avoided, even though default routing and asymmetrical multihoming is used. Additionally, our solution can realize an immediate failover if a fatal error occurs at a traversed middlebox, and offer disjoint network paths for possible bandwidth aggregation. These advanced features are of vital importance for dynamic end-to-end resource availability and satisfactory service quality for clients with heterogeneous access technologies.

An Enhanced Multihoming Support Scheme with Proxy Mobile IPv6 for Convergent Networks

This paper analyzes the limitations of the multihoming support in the Proxy Mobile IPv6 protocol, then proposes an enhanced multihoming support scheme based on a per-interface address configuration method. The proposed scheme can provide a more flexible multihoming support and also maintain application session continuity during a handoff between two interfaces by using IPv6 extension headers. Plus, flow distribution with filters is also used to realize the advantages of multihoming. Simulation results with the OPNET validate the proposed multihoming support scheme for convergent networks.

Hi3: An efficient and secure networking architecture for mobile hosts

The Host Identity Indirection Infrastructure ( Hi3) is a networking architecture for mobile hosts, derived from the Internet Indirection Infrastructure ( i3) and the Host Identity Protocol (HIP). Hi3 has efficient support for secure mobility and multihoming, which both are crucial for future Internet applications. In this paper, we describe and analyze Hi3 in detail. Compared to existing solutions, Hi3 achieves better resilience, scalability, and security. Both our analysis and early measurements support the notion that Hi3 preserves the best of both approaches while improving performance compared to i3 and enhancing flexibility and security compared to HIP.

AMS: An Adaptive TCP Bandwidth Aggregation Mechanism for Multi-homed Mobile Hosts

Recently, the number of multi-homed hosts is getting large, which are equipped with multiple network interfaces to support multiple IP addresses. Although there are several proposals that aim at bandwidth aggregation for multi-homed hosts, few of them support mobility. This paper proposes a new framework called AMS: Aggregate-bandwidth Multi-homing Support. AMS provides functions of not only bandwidth aggregation but also mobility by responding to the changes of the number of connections during communication without the support of underlying infrastructure. To achieve efficient data transmission, AMS introduces a function called address pairs selection to select an optimal combination of addresses of the peer nodes. We implemented AMS in the kernel of NetBSD and evaluated it in our test network, in which dummynet was used to control bandwidth and delay. The measured results showed that AMS achieved ideal bandwidth aggregation in three TCP connections by selecting optimal address pairs.

On SCTP multi-homing performance

The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is a general purpose transport protocol featuring multi-homing support, message oriented and more flexible data delivery mechanisms than TCP, and an increased protection against well-known attacks. Originally developed for the transport of Signaling System No. 7 messages, e.g. MTP level 3 user primitives, over IP networks, SCTP has evolved to a general purpose transport protocol with a wide field of applications. With respect to multi-homing, the current SCTP standard uses this feature for network level redundancy only. Therefore we propose and evaluate in this contribution mechanisms for the application-specific optimisation of the SCTP protocol behaviour with respect to its multi-homing capabilities. To satisfy the extremely strict performance requirements for signalling transport, efficient load sharing among all active links is also highly desirable in SCTP scenarios. To this end, we propose a novel, improved load sharing algorithm for SCTP with path based selective acknowledgements which avoids some of the drawbacks of the existing algorithms and achieves an increase in throughput. Results of a comparative simulation study are presented to demonstrate the benefits of our algorithm.

End-site routing support for IPv6 multihoming1

Multihoming is currently widely used to provide fault tolerance and traffic engineering capabilities. It is expected that, as telecommunication costs decrease, its adoption will become more and more prevalent. Current multihoming support is not designed to scale up to the expected number of multihomed sites, so alternative solutions are required, especially for IPv6. In order to preserve interdomain routing scalability, the new multihoming solution has to be compatible with Provider Aggregatable addressing. However, such addressing scheme imposes the configuration of multiple prefixes in multihomed sites, which in turn causes several operational difficulties within those sites that may even result in communication failures when all the ISPs are working properly. In this paper we propose the adoption of Source Address Dependent routing within the multihomed site to overcome the identified difficulties.