Developing an application based on OpenFlow to enhance mobile IP networks

Abstract

Mobile Internet Protocol (IP) has been developed to maintain permanent IP addresses for mobile users while they are moving from one point to another where the Mobile Terminal (MT) device will have two IP addresses: a static home address and a care-of address which will be changed and re-attached at each point of the movement of the MT. However, a location update message is required to be sent to the home agent for each new connection. This will potentially increase the handoff latency and leads to high load on the global Internet. This paper presents the concepts and the challenges of Mobile IP networks and then proposes the use of OpenFlow approach as an alternate transport mechanism to perform routing and to provide network connectivity for Mobile IP networks. The proposed application determines calculations and reroutes the subsequent packets. OpenFlow aims to optimize routing path and handoff performance by using controller's application and exchanges controllers' information. © 2013 IEEE.