One document matched: draft-chan-netext-distributed-lma-00.txt




NETEXT                                                           H. Chan
Internet-Draft                                                    F. Xia
Intended status: Standards Track                                J. Xiang
Expires: May 16, 2010                                Huawei Technologies
                                                       November 12, 2009


                   Distributed Local Mobility Anchors
                  draft-chan-netext-distributed-lma-00

Abstract

   The full functions of a local mobility anchor may be separated into
   different logical functions: (1) allocation of home network prefixes
   or home addresses to mobile nodes, (2) location management function
   which includes managing the IP addresses and locations of the mobile
   nodes and (3) mobility routing function which includes intercepting
   and forwarding packets.  Distributed local mobility anchors provides
   visiting local mobility anchors in different networks with mobility
   routing function to avoid triangle routing problem in Proxy mobile IP
   or Mobile IP, but keeps the internetwork location management function
   at the home local mobility anchors at registered networks.  The
   needed location information of a mobile node is acquired only when a
   packet is first sent to the mobile node and are then cached at the
   visiting local mobility anchor to enable subsequent optimized
   mobility routing.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
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   Drafts.

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   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.




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   This Internet-Draft will expire on May 16, 2010.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2009 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
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   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the BSD License.



































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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.1.  Splitting the logical functions of a local mobility
           anchor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.2.  Originating local mobility anchor and destination
           local mobility anchor  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     2.3.  Home local mobility anchor versus visiting local
           mobility anchor  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   3.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   4.  Overall mechanism  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.1.  Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.2.  Anycast  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     4.3.  Visited Network  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     4.4.  Mobility routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   5.  Packet flow  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.1.  Sending packets to mobile node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     5.2.  Changing MAG without changing V-LMA  . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.3.  Changing LMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     5.4.  Sending packets from mobile node . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   6.  Performance  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     6.1.  Round trip time  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     6.2.  Call setup delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     6.3.  Double move problem  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   7.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   8.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   9.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     9.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     9.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17




















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1.  Introduction

   Proxy mobile IP [RFC5213] as well as mobile IP [RFC3775] support
   mobility by using a home address for session and a care-of address
   for routing but has the problem of triangle routing when the home
   agent is far from a mobile node and the correspondent.

   Unneccessarily long routes may be avoided by having multiple home
   agents in different geographic locations [GHAHA].  These home agents
   announce the same IP prefixes using anycast.  The traffic originating
   from the mobile node will then be served by the nearest home agent,
   and the traffic sent from a correspondent node to the mobile node
   will be intercepted by the home agent nearest to the correspondent
   node.  Therefore both traffic will use the home agent nearest to
   where the traffic originates, so that triangle routing is avoided.
   These home agents may possess identical information about the mobile
   nodes [MHA].  Yet the synchronization of all the home agents will
   then be a challenge [SMGI].  In addition, the design needs to scale
   in deployment, but in synchronizing the home agents the amount of
   signaling traffic needed may increase with both the number of home
   agents and the number of mobile nodes.

   This draft proposes to decouple the logical functions of a local
   mobility anchor into that of home address allocation, location
   management, and mobility routing.  The mobility routing function may
   be present in many geographical locations.  However, the home address
   allocation function and the internetwork location management function
   may be kept only at the network the mobile node is registered to, and
   the individual location management information for a specific mobile
   node may be acquired when needed.  Home local mobility anchor and
   visiting local mobility anchor to a mobile node are then defined in
   terms of these logical mobility functions, each of which may be
   implemented in one or multiple instances.  These two mobility logical
   functions do not need to physically co-locate leaving flexibility for
   the implementation to place each in their most appropriate locations.

   The concept of proxy home agent and primary home agent has been
   introduced in [GHAHA], where a proxy home agent closest to a mobile
   node away from its home agent may perform binding update with the
   primary home agent on behalf of the mobile node, and also intercept
   and tunnel messages for the mobile node.  This draft also extends
   this work, applies distributed local mobility anchors to proxy mobile
   IP, and describes mobility routing and its expected performance.

   This draft is written using the definitions of Proxy mobile IP, but
   the proposal works equally well for mobile IP.





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2.  Motivation

2.1.  Splitting the logical functions of a local mobility anchor

   A local mobility anchor, being a home agent, needs to perform the
   following logical functions: (1) home network prefix or home address
   allocation function: allocating home network prefix or home address
   HoA to a mobile node that registers with the network; (2)
   internetwork location management function: managing and keeping track
   of the internetwork location of the mobile node, which include a
   mapping of the HoA to the mobility anchoring point that the mobile
   node is anchoring to; and (3) mobility routing function: intercepting
   packets to/from the home address of a mobile node and forwarding the
   packets, based on the internetwork location information, either to
   the destination or to some other network element that knows how to
   forward to the destination.

   When these logical functions are all bundled into one single entity
   known as the local mobility anchor LMA, having LMA in one network
   only results in triangle routing problem as shown in Figure 1.


   ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^
 (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     )
 (     ) ( LMA ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     )
 (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     )
   v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v

                                           MN              CN

   Figure 1.  Configuration showing mobility routing (MR) function
   available in many networks, whereas the dynamic internetwork location
   management (LM) function resides in one registered network only.

   The other extreme is to duplicate the LMAs in many networks (Figure
   2) to solve triangle routing problem.  Yet the location management
   information will need to be pushed to all these LMAs.














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   ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^
 (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     )
 ( LMA ) ( LMA ) ( LMA ) ( LMA ) ( LMA ) ( LMA ) ( LMA ) ( LMA ) ( LMA )
 (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     )
   v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v

                                           MN              CN

   Figure 2.  Configuration showing the replication of LMAs in multiple
   networks.

   This draft proposes to decouple the logical functions of the local
   mobility anchor.  These logical functions do not need to physically
   co-locate so that each may be located in its most appropriate places.
   One may then examine which functions should be present in many
   geographic locations and which functions do not.

   As illustrated in Figure 3, having mobility routing function
   available in multiple geographic locations will solve triangle
   routing problem.  It is also evidvent that the network that accepts
   the registration of the mobile node is responsible for the HoA
   allocation.  This network may therefore also manage the internetwork
   location information.  Yet it appears that pushing the location
   management information to the home agents in all networks may be an
   overkill, and the mobile node does not always actually communicates
   with CNs from all the other networks.  A distributed database may
   employ different servers to manage different data.  The data in each
   server is not pushed to all the other servers but the database system
   knows which data resides in which server.  Here, keeping the location
   management function with the individual registered networks only will
   avoid the need to synchronize the location management information in
   a timely and scalable manner.


   ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^
 (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     )
 (     ) ( LM  ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     )
 ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  )
 (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     )
   v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v

                                           MN              CN

   Figure 3.  Configuration showing mobility routing (MR) function
   available in many networks, whereas the dynamic internetwork location
   management (LM) function resides in one network only.





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2.2.  Originating local mobility anchor and destination local mobility
      anchor

   The LMA to which MN is anchored to is the destination LMA (D-LMA)
   (Figure 4).  It is capable of delivering incoming packets to the MN.

   When a CN sends a packet to MN, the LMA closest to CN needs to
   intercept the packet to avoid triangle routing.  This LMA is the
   originating LMA (O-LMA) that needs to provide mobility routing
   function for this packet so that the packet may be routed through the
   internetworks to reach D-LMA.


   ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^     ^ ^
 (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     )
 (     ) ( LM  ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     )
 ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  ) ( MR  )
 (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     ) (     )
   v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v     v v
                                            |               |
                                          D-LMA           O-LMA
                                            |               |
                                            |               |
                                           MN              CN

   Figure 4.  Configuration showing O-LMA and D-LMA for a packet sent
   from CN to MN.

2.3.  Home local mobility anchor versus visiting local mobility anchor

   This draft defines home local mobility anchor and visiting local
   mobility anchor as logical functions.

   The home local mobility anchor (H-LMA) of a mobile node are the
   logical mobility functions of home-address allocation, location
   management, and mobility routing, which are provided by the network
   to which the mobile node is registered.  The visiting local mobility
   anchor (V-LMA) are the logical mobility functions provided by a
   visited network.  We use the term visiting local mobility anchor
   irrespective of whether the mobile node actually visits that network.
   To the mobile node, V-LMA provides predominantly mobility routing
   function only.

   Although H-LMA performs all the logical mobility functions for a
   mobile node registered to that network, these logical functions are
   considered separate and do not need to co-locate.  Therefore the
   local mobility anchor does not need to be one single physical entity.
   It is possible to have one or multiple physical entities to provide



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   location management function and one or multiple physical entities to
   provide mobility routing function, and these different entities do
   not need to be in one-to-one relationship.

   To perform HoA allocation, each H-LMA may use its own block of IP
   prefixes to allocate IP addresses to the MNs registering to its
   network.  The IP prefixes of all the H-LMAs form a super set of IP
   prefixes.  All the H-LMAs and V-LMAs advertize this same super set of
   IP prefixes using anycast, so that no matther where a mobile node is
   located, the anycast and the routing algorithm will enable the
   nearest LMA to serve the mobile node.

   To perform dynamic internetwork location management function, H-LMA
   must know which V-LMA the MN is anhoring to if MN is roaming in a
   visited network.  The H-LMAs in different networks provide a
   distributed database of such records for all the MNs anchored to
   these networks.

   The LMA to which MN is anchored delivers incoming packets to MN; it
   is the D-LMA for incoming packets.  When MN is in its registered
   network, it is anchored to H-LMA using an HoA address belonging to
   the H-LMA.  When MN is in a visiting network, it is anchored in that
   network to the V-LMA which is closest to the MN, and MAG does the MIP
   signaling on behalf of MN.

   No matter where a correspondent node is located, any packet sent from
   CN to HoA is intercepted by the nearest LMA, which is the O-LMA.
   O-LMA will need to obtain the location information of MN from H-LMA
   so that it may route the packet to D-LMA.  Yet because the HoA of MN
   belongs to the IP prefix of its registered network, the mapping of
   HoA to H-LMA does not change often and can therefore be known to all
   V-LMA.  The mobility routing function in V-LMA, before route
   optimization, is therefore simply to forward a packet from CN to the
   H-LMA of MN, and H-LMA has the dynamic location information about MN
   to complete the mobility routing.  After route optimization, the
   packet will need to be forwarded directly from O-LMA to D-LMA.


3.  Terminology

   All the general mobility-related terms used in this document are to
   be interpreted as defined in the Mobile IPv6 base specification
   [RFC3775] and in the Proxy mobile IPv6 specification [RFC5213].

   In addition, this draft introduces the following terms.






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   Mobility routing function  is the logical function to intercept and
      forward packets to/from a mobile node.

   Home address allocation function  is the logical function to allocate
      home address to a mobile node.

   Location management function  is the logical function to manage the
      location of a mobile node, which is in terms of the mapping
      between the HoA and the internetwork location infromation of the
      mobile node.  There are two different mappings to the internetwork
      location for a mobile node.  The mapping to the H-LMA to which the
      mobile node is registered is usually a static information.  The
      mapping to the local mobility anchor which is serving the mobile
      node will change when the mobile node changes it mobility
      anchoring point; H-LMA needs to know about this mapping.  There
      are of cause additional location information about the intra-
      network location which the local network needs to route packets to
      the mobile node from the local mobility anchor and which is
      dependent upon the intra-network mobility mechanism.

   Home local mobility anchor  (H-LMA) to a mobile node are the full
      logical functions of a local mobility anchor to the mobile node.
      It allocates home address (HoA) to the mobile node, manages the
      location of the mobile node, intercepts messages to/from the
      mobile node, and forwards these messages.  Each mobile node is
      registed to a H-LMA, which can download from a home AAA server the
      profile of the mobile node.  If the mobile node is anchored to a
      visiting local mobility anchor (V-LMA), the H-LMA will manage the
      mapping between HoA and the V-LMA that the mobile node is
      currently anchoring to.  The different logical functions do not
      need to co-locate, and each of these logical functions may be
      implemented in one or multiple instances.

   Visiting local mobility anchor  (V-LMA) to a mobile node are a subset
      of the full logical functions of a local mobility anchor towards
      the mobile node.  It intercepts messages to/from the mobile and
      forwards messages using the location management information it
      will acquire from the home local mobility anchor of the mobile
      node.  If the mobile node is anchored to the V-LMA, the V-LMA will
      inform the H-LMA of the mobile node and may manage the mapping
      between HoA and proxy-CoA of the mobile node.

   Originating local mobility anchor  (O-LMA) is the first local
      mobility anchor that intercepts a message to a mobile node.







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   Destination local mobility anchor  (D-LMA) of a mobile node is the
      local mobility anchor to which the mobile node is currently
      anchored to.  It knows where to deliver packets to reach the
      mobile node.


4.  Overall mechanism

   The architecture of distributed LMA is shown in Figure 5.


     ^ ^ ^ ^ ^       ^ ^ ^ ^ ^       ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
   (           )   (           )   (           )
   ( Registered)   (  Visited  )   (  Visited  )
   (  Network  )   ( Network-1 )   ( Network-2 )
   (           )   (           )   (           )
     v v v v v       v v v v v       v v v v v
         |               |               |
       H-LMA          V-LMA-1         V-LMA-2
                         |               |
                         |               |
                         |               |
                         |               |
                        MAG              |
                         |               |
                         |               |
                        MN              CN

   Figure 5.  Configuration with MN registered to H-LMA in the
   registered network, anchored to the V-LMA (V-LMA-1) in visited
   network-1, and communicating with CN served by the V-LMA (V-LMA-2) in
   visited network-2.

4.1.  Registration

   A mobile node MN may register with a H-LMA.

   The H-LMA can download from a home AAA server the profile of MN.

   The H-LMA allocates to the MN a home address HoA belonging to a block
   of prefixes managed by the H-LMA.

   The H-LMA performs mobility routing function for the MN within this
   registered network.

   The H-LMA also performs location management for the MN.  If MN has
   roamed or handed off to another network and anchored to a V-LMA of
   the visited network, H-LMN must know which V-LMA the MN is anchoring



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   to.

4.2.  Anycast

   An example of using anycast for HoA prefixes is shown in Figure 6.


     ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^       ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^       ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
   (                 )   (                 )   (                 )
   (     LMA of      )   (     LMA of      )   (     LMA of      )
   (    Network-1    )   (    Network-2    )   (    Network-3    )
   (  allocates HoA  )   (  allocates HoA  )   (  allocates HoA  )
   (  with Prefixes  )   (  with Prefixes  )   (  with Prefixes  )
   (     P1A,P1B     )   (     P2A,P2B     )   (     P3A,P3C     )
   (                 )   (                 )   (                 )
     v v v v v v v v       v v v v v v v v       v v v v v v v v
           /|\                   /|\                   /|\
          / | \                 / | \                 / | \
         /  |  \               /  |  \               /  |  \
        PA,PB,P3C             PA,PB,P3C             PA,PB,P3C

   Figure 6.  Example of Anycast of HoA Prefixes.  The LMA in each
   network broadcasts the superset of prefixes PA, PB, P3C. Here PA is
   the aggregate of P1A, P2A, and P3A; PB is the aggregate of P1B and
   P2B

   Each LMA in its network owns a set of IP prefixes which it uses to
   allocate home network prefixes or HoAs to the MNs registered to that
   network.

   The HoA prefixes of all the LMAs form a superset of HoA prefixes.
   Some prefixes in this superset may be aggregatable, but it is also
   possible that some may not be aggregatable.

   Each LMA advertises the superset of HoA prefixes.  An IP packet sent
   to any HoA will therefore be intercepted by the LMA nearest to the
   sender.

4.3.  Visited Network

   An MN that has registered with a H-LMA may roam or handoff to a
   visited network.

   As MN leaves its registered network and enters a visited network, it
   still receives the prefix advertisement of its HoA from the LMA that
   uses anycast to advertise the superset of HoA prefixes in the visited
   network.




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   An MAG sends binding update to LMA on behalf of MN using the HoA of
   the MN and its proxy CoA.

   To ensure robustness, LMA looks up which H-LMA the MN has registered
   to, based on the HoA prefix of the MN.  LMA checks with that H-LMA
   for uniqueness of that HoA address to complete the binding update.
   If H-LMA has determined that the HoA is not unique, V-LMA will need
   to register MN with H-LMA to obtain a valid HoA.

   This visiting LMA (V-LMA) in this visited network has become the new
   mobility anchoring point of MN.

   V-LMA peforms mobility routing function for MN.

   V-LMA informs H-LMA that it is the current mobility anchoring point
   for the MN.

   After MN has anchored to a V-LMA (V-LMA-1) in a visited network, it
   may leave this visited network and roam or handoff to another visited
   network.  It will then anchor to another V-LMA (V-LMA-2).  H-LMA must
   again be informed that MN is currently anchoring to V-LMA-2.

   In addition, V-LMA-1 is also informed that MN has anchored to V-LMA-2
   so that if V-LMA-1 has received packets destined to MN, V-LMA-1 may
   also forward these packets to V-LMA-2.

4.4.  Mobility routing

   When an originating LMA (O-LMA) has intercepted a packet with
   destination address HoA of an MN, it checks its cache whether there
   is location information of this HoA.

   If O-LMA has the cache memory of this HoA indicating that MN is
   currently anchored to the destination LMA (D-LMA), it tunnels the
   packet to the D-LMA.

   If the location information is not in the cache memory of O-LMA,
   O-LMA tunnels the packet to the H-LMA based on the HoA prefix.  Each
   H-LMA manages a unique set of HoA prefixes, and each LMA knows which
   HoA prefix is owned by which H-LMA.

   When H-LMA has received a packet which is destined to an HoA
   belonging to its HoA prefix and which is tunneled to it by an O-LMA,
   but its location information indicates that the MN is currently
   anchored to another LMA (D-LMA), it tunnels the packet to the D-LMA.
   Meanwhile it sends this location informations of HoA to O-LMA.

   When O-LMA has received from H-LMA that the location information that



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   HoA is currently anchored to a D-LMA, it caches this information.

   If O-LMA has no activities of HoA packets, the cache memory of the
   HoA location information will time out.

   If an MN has recently moved from one D-LMA (p-LMA) to another D-LMA
   (n-LMA), n-LMA will send the new location information of HoA to both
   H-LMA and p-LMA.

   When p-LMA is informed that MN has moved to another D-LMA (n-LMA), it
   caches this location information.  This cache memory will time out
   when its timer expires.

   When p-LMA has received packets for HoA from an O-LMA, it checks its
   cache memory about the new location information of the MN.  If the
   cache memory has not timed out, it tunnels the packet to n-LMA.
   Meanwhile, it sends to O-LMA the new location information for this
   HoA.

   When an LMA has received packets for an HoA which is not anchored to
   itself, it drops the packet unless it is the p-LMA for this HoA and
   the cache memory of the new location has not yet expired.


5.  Packet flow

5.1.  Sending packets to mobile node

   When a correspondent node (CN) first attempts to communicate with MN
   using the HoA of MN, the packet is intercepted by the LMA nearest to
   CN because all LMAs are advertizing the same superset of IP prefixes
   using anycast.  We call this originating LMA (O-LMA).  This O-LMA
   uses the HoA to look up the H-LMA of MN and then tunnels the packet
   to H-LMA.  H-LMA receives the packet and de-encapsulates it to read
   the HoA of MN.

   If MN is in a visiting network, H-LMN will tunnel the packet to the
   V-LMA to which MN is currently anchored.  V-LMA will de-encapsulate
   the packet and use the proxy care-of address (proxy CoA) to tunnel
   the packet to MN or to mobility anchor gateway (MAG).  Figure 7 shows
   the destination address at the network layer of the protocol stack of
   a first packet sent from CN to MN.









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   First packets

   +---+   +---+-----+   +-----+-----+   +-----+---+   +---+---+   +---+
   |HoA|-->|HoA| HoA |   | HoA | HoA |   | HoA |HoA|   |HoA|HoA|-->|HoA|
   |   |   |   |-----|   |-----|-----|   |-----|---|   |---|   |   |   |
   |   |   |   |H-LMA|-->|H-LMA|V-LMA|-->|V-LMA|CoA|-->|CoA|   |   |   |
   +---+   +---+-----+   +-----+-----+   +-----+---+   +---+---+   +---+

    CN        O-LMA          H-LMA          V-LMA         MAG       MN

   Figure 7.  Network layer in the protocol stack of the first packet
   sent from CN to MN in a visited network showing the destination IP
   address as the packet travses from CN to MN

   Only the first packet(s) from CN may encounter triangle routing.
   When H-LMA has received this first packet from O-LMA and forwards
   this packet to V-LMA, it will also inform O-LMA that the HoA is
   currently anchored to V-LMA.  The O-LMA keeps this location
   management information in a cache memory so that it may forward the
   packet directly to V-LMA in future without going through H-LMA.
   V-LMA may use the proxy care-of address (proxy CoA) to directly
   tunnel the packet to MN or to mobility anchor gateway (MAG) (Figure
   8).

   Subsequent packets

   +---+     +---+-----+     +-----+---+     +---+---+     +---+
   |HoA| --> |HoA| HoA |     | HoA |HoA|     |HoA|HoA| --> |HoA|
   |   |     |   |-----|     |-----|---|     |---|   |     |   |
   |   |     |   |V-LMA| --> |V-LMA|CoA| --> |CoA|   |     |   |
   +---+     +---+-----+     +-----+---+     +---+---+     +---+

    CN          O-LMA           V-LMA           MAG         MN

   Figure 8.  Network layer in the protocol stack of subsequent packets
   sent from CN and tunneled to V-LMA in a visited network showing the
   destination IP address as the packet travses from CN to MN

   After absence of traffic from O-LMA to HoA for some time, the cache
   memory in O-LMA may time out.

5.2.  Changing MAG without changing V-LMA

   It is possible for MN to change its mobile access gateway (MAG) and
   proxy CoA while anchoring to the same V-LMA.  With no change of
   V-LMA, packets forwarded from O-LMA to V-LMA are unaffected.

   MAG may change from p-MAG to n-MAG.  As proxy CoA subsequently



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   changes, V-LMA updates the mapping between HoA and proxy CoA.

   If O-LMA has been tunneling directly to p-MAG without going through
   D-LMA, the previous MAG (p-MAG) will need to tunnel the packet to the
   new MAG (n-MAG).  Meanwhile p-MAG will inform O-LMA to tunnel future
   packets directly to n-MAG.

5.3.  Changing LMA

   When the movement of a mobile node during an onging session
   necessitates change of its local mobility anchor from a previous LMA
   (p-LMA) to a new LMA (n-LMA), H-LMA will be notified to ensure it has
   the correct location information.  The other LMA may either forward
   packets to H-LMA or obtain the optimized routing information.  Yet
   some LMA may have cached the old location information and may
   continue to tunnel packets to p-LMA.  This situation may happen if
   some CN served by an O-LMA has sent packet to MN earlier and the
   cache memory has not yet timed out.  This situation may also happen
   when both MN and CN move and change LMAs at the same time.

   We add a forwarding mechanism here.  When MN moves from p-LMA to
   n-LMA, n-LMA may notify p-LMA.  Then if the packets for MN reaches
   p-LMA, p-LMA will forward these packet to n-LMA so that the packet
   will be able to always reach n-LMA.  Meanwhile p-LMA will inform
   O-LMA to tunnel future packets directly to n-LMA.

   If O-LMA is already tunneling directly to p-MAG without going through
   p-LMA, the previous MAG (p-MAG) will need to tunnel the packet to the
   new MAG (n-MAG).  Meanwhile p-MAG will inform O-LMA to tunnel future
   packets directly to n-MAG.

5.4.  Sending packets from mobile node

   It is trivial to see that sending packets from a mobile node does not
   encounter triangle routing problem.  The packet addressed to a
   correspondent node may not always need to go through LMA.  Yet it may
   choose to go through LMA because of location privacy, and Figure 9
   shows the source IP address of such a packet, which is tunneled to
   O-LMA.  This LMA is the closest LMA to which MN is anchoring to and
   will then send the packet to the correspondent node.











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   +---+     +---+---+    +---+---+     +---+
   |HoA| --> |HoA|HoA|    |HoA|HoA| --> |HoA|
   |   |     |   |---|    |---|   |     |   |
   |   |     |   |CoA| -->|CoA|   |     |   |
   +---+     +---+---+    +---+---+     +---+

    MN          MAG         O-LMA        CN

   Figure 9.  Network layer showing the source IP address as a packet
   travses from MN to CN.


6.  Performance

6.1.  Round trip time

   In this proposal, O-LMA will behave like a full functioned LMA for MN
   after it has acquired and cached the location management to optimize
   routing.  The route from CN to MN for later packets are then the same
   as for migrating home agents.  It is therefore reasonable to say that
   the round trip time after the first packets are comparable to
   migrating home agents for which the experimentally achieved round
   trip times had already been shown in their experiments [MHA].

6.2.  Call setup delay

   Only the first packet or first few packets may, but not always,
   encounter triangle routing.  It is possible to query the H-LMA before
   sending the first packet.  Yet a V-LMA is not completely at lost of
   where to route in distributed LMA design.  Here, each H-LMA is
   responsible for its own block of IP addresses in a network to
   allocate to the mobile nodes registering to that network.  Every LMA
   may be informed of which H-LMA is responsible for which address
   block.

   In other words, O-LMA does not lack routing information even for the
   first packets.  It lacks only optimized-route informing.  Without
   such information, O-LMA already knows which H-LMA is managing the HoA
   and may therefore immediately forward the first packets to H-LMA
   without waiting for information acquisition.  The routing path going
   through H-LMA here is comparable to that in mobile IP using home
   agent in the home network only.

   Triangle routing is encountered only for certain configuration with
   the mobile node being far from the registered network and only for
   the first packets.  This is a small price for not pushing the full
   location management information to all the other home agents and
   synchronizing all the home agents.



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   The possible delay only for the first packets may not always be
   important, because it may affects only the call setup delay.  Many
   communication applications go through a call set up process to begin
   a communication session.  A short enough packet delay in an ongoing
   communication session may be needed, but a relatively longer call
   setup delay has been customary.  Compared with pushing mobility
   management information to all home agents, the distributed local
   mobility achors differ only in a possible triangle routing for the
   first packets which may be a small overhead only to the call setup
   delay.

   The amount of signaling in pushing location management to all the
   other home agents is proportional to the product of the number of
   mobile nodes and the number of home agents.  By keeping the master
   information at H-LMA, the amount of signaling is proportional to the
   number of mobile nodes only.

6.3.  Double move problem

   Double move problem refers to that when both source and destination
   nodes are moving at the same time.  In this case, the mobile node has
   moved from a previous LMA (p-LMA) to a new LMA (n-LMA) while the
   correspondent node has also changed its O-LMA.  The O-LMA of the
   correspondent node may be using outdated cache information to route
   packet to p-LMA.  Here n-LMA may inform p-LMA to forward these
   packets to n-LMA.  Meanwhile, p-LMA may inform O-LMA to route future
   packet directly to n-LMA.


7.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not require any IANA actions.


8.  Security Considerations

   Trust relationship is needed among the LMAs, as in PMIP.  When O-LMA
   tunnels packets back to H-LMA, the security considerations are not
   different from PMIP.

   Lack of trust relationship among LMAs is vulnerable to various
   attacks.  An untrusted LMA may also tunnel many packets to a D-LMA
   causing DOS attack.

   With route optimization, H-LMA may send location information to O-LMA
   which will use this information to tunnel packets directly to D-LMA.
   The trust relationship between H-LMA and O-LMA and the protection of
   these location information messages are important.  The protection



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   mechanisms needed are similar to those of proxy binding updates in
   [GHAHA].

   When MN moves from p-LMA to n-LMA, lack of secure mechanism in
   sending location information update from n-LMA to p-LMA may enable a
   rogue LMA to hijack the traffic to HoA.  Proper trust relationship
   among LMAs and secured mechanisms are needed to protect these
   messages, but these mechanisms are again also needed in [GHAHA].


9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

   [RFC3775]  Johnson, D., Perkins, C., and J. Arkko, "Mobility Support
              in IPv6", RFC 3775, June 2004.

   [RFC5213]  Gundavelli, S., Leung, K., Devarapalli, V., Chowdhury, K.,
              and B. Patil, "Proxy Mobile IPv6", RFC 5213, August 2008.

9.2.  Informative References

   [GHAHA]    Thubert, P., Wakikawa, R., and V. Devarapalli, "Global HA
              to HA protocol", draft-thubert-mext-global-haha-01 (work
              in progress), July 2009.

   [MHA]      Wakikawa, R., Valadon, G., and J. Murai, "Migrating Home
              Agents Towards Internet-scale Mobility Deployments",
               Proceedings of the ACM 2nd CoNEXT Conference on Future
              Networking Technologies,  Lisboa, Portugal, December 2006.

   [SMGI]     Zhang, L., Wakikawa, R., and Z. Zhu, "Support Mobility in
              the Global Internet",  Proceedings of ACM Workshop on
              MICNET, MobiCom 2009, Beijing, China, September 2009.


Authors' Addresses

   H Anthony Chan
   Huawei Technologies
   1700 Alma Ave
   Plano, TX 75075
   USA

   Email: anthonychan@huawei.com






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   Frank Xia
   Huawei Technologies
   1700 Alma Ave
   Plano, TX 75075
   USA

   Email: xiayangsong@huawei.com


   Justin Xiang
   Huawei Technologies
   1700 Alma Ave
   Plano, TX 75075
   USA

   Email: zengjun.xiang@huawei.com



































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