An Adaptation of Proxy Mobile IPv6 to OpenFlow Architecture over Software Defined Networking

Abstract

In this paper, Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6), which is a network-based mobility management protocol, is adapted to the OpenFlow architecture. Mobility-related signaling is generally performed by network entities on behalf of a mobile node, but in standard PMIPv6, the control and data packets are delivered and processed over the same network entities, which prevents the separation of the control and the data planes. In addition, IP tunneling inherent to PMIPv6 imposes excessive overhead for the network entities. In order to adapt PMIPv6 to the OpenFlow architecture, the mobility management function is separated from the PMIPv6 components, and components are reconstructed to take advantage of the offerings of the OpenFlow architecture. The components configure the flow table of the switches located in a path, which comprise the OpenFlow controller. Mobility-related signaling can then be performed at the dedicated secure channel, and all of the data packets can be sent normally in accordance with the flow table of the OpenFlow switches. Consequently, the proposed scheme eliminates IP tunneling when user traffic is forwarded and separates the data and the control planes. The performance analysis revealed that the proposed scheme can outperform PMIPv6 in terms of the signaling cost, packet delivery cost, and handover latency.