Published in IET Networks

Received on 15th July 2012

Revised on 13th March 2013
Accepted on 17th March 2013
doi: 10.1049/iet-net.2012.0141
ISSN 2047-4954
Adaptive quality of service aware multi-mobility
anchor point registration in hierarchical mobile IPv6
wireless access networks
Ana Mirsayar Barkoosaraei, A. Hamid Aghvami, Paul Pangalos
Institute of Telecommunication Research, Kings College London, London WC2R 2LS3, UK
E-mail: ana.mirsayar_barkoosaraei@kcl.ac.uk
Abstract: In hierarchical mobile IPv6 (HMIPv6), mobility anchor points (MAPs) are introduced to reduce the signalling cost by
localising the signalling trafc of mobile nodes (MNs). However, the presence of MAPs introduces areas of bottleneck within the
network. This study evaluates the impact of overlapped domains of consecutive MAPs in HMIPv6 access networks. In this novel
network architecture, an MAP registration algorithm is also proposed to enable MNs to register with more than one MAP
simultaneously. For each ow, the proposed algorithm determines a primary and a secondary MAP according to the quality
of service (QoS) requirements of the trafc ow. Load balancing is also introduced to provide an even distribution of load
among MAPs. In addition, an extended router advertisement is proposed to enable multiple MAP registration of MNs. The
impact of the proposed algorithm in the new HMIPv6 network architectures is compared with a non-QoS aware multi-MAP
registration algorithm in access network with no overlapped MAP domains. The simulation-based comparison study illustrates
a maximum of 71 and 74% improvements in total amount of rejected bandwidth and the mean satised ow requests in
network, respectively.
1 Introduction
The growth in the number of mobile wireless devices
accessing IP-based networks has introduced the need for
efcient mobility support. It is notable that many of the
network control points and devices operate on IPv4 protocols.
Proxy mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) is a network-based IP
protocol, as opposed to the host-based mobile IPv6
(MIPv6) [1] protocol. PMIPv6 provides mobility
management support for the mobile nodes (MNs). The
drawbacks of PMIPv6 have been documented in the
literature. In [2], a multihoming extension to PMIPv6
protocol is proposed to enable mobile devices to connect to
multiple networks simultaneously. Also in [3], an improved
multicast handover procedure is introduced to optimise
multicastgroup management in PMIPv6. The proposed
management minimises the service interruption time and
prevents the multicast packet loss during handovers.
The aim of this paper is to shed more light on the
performance improvement of the hierarchical mobile IPv6
(HMIPv6)-based access networks by proposing a novel
network architecture. Primarily, MIPv6 was proposed to
provide IP connectivity to MNs that change their wireless
IP point of attachment. In MIPv6 binding update (BU)
messages are sent to the corresponding nodes (CNs) and the
home agent (HA), at every change in MNs point of
attachment. Consequently, large handover signalling
overhead is generated. The drawbacks of MIPv6 have been
well documented in the literature [4]. Mobility agent
(MA)-based family protocols were proposed to minimise
such delay [5].
In the MA-based micro mobility solutions, each access
router (AR) has one MA. When an MN enters into this
access network, it registers itself with the MA. The CNs
and HA have the MA registered address of the MN and
send all packets to the MA. The MA in turn tunnels packets
to the MN. In [6], it is shown that the presence of MAs in
access network increases congestion, and reduces the
network throughput. Also in [7], it is proved that the
presence of MAs reduces the capacity of the access
network, since both uplink and downlink trafcs are forced
to ow through a small number of MAs.
1.1 Related works
In large-scale wireless mobile IP networks, more than one
MA may be deployed in the same hierarchy level, in order
to provide more scalable and robust mobile services [8]. In
the HMIPv6 networks, MAs are referred to as the mobility
anchor points (MAPs). In order to support registration of an
MN with multiple MAPs, a multiple MAP registration
mechanism is required. In addition, prior to the MAP
registration process an intelligent MAP selection
mechanism is essential, so the MNs can select the most
suitable MAPs to reduce the total cost (i.e. packet delay and
handover delay costs) among the available MAPs in the
network. Here, the term available means the MAPs that are
advertised by MNs current AR.
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176 IET Netw., 2014, Vol. 3, Iss. 3, pp. 176186
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014 doi: 10.1049/iet-net.2012.0141
Selecting an optimal MAP is a well-researched area and
many MAP selection mechanisms have been proposed in
[79] and several other documents. However, each of these
schemes considers only certain specic characteristics and
possesses its own advantages and disadvantages [10].
1.2 Novelty and contributions
Overlapping MAP domains enable each AR to be managed
by more than one MAP, which has an impact on the trafc
load distribution in the network [11]. Consequently, the
performance of the entire network is inuenced. Intuitively,
by allowing ows of a populated AR to ow through more
than one MAP, the bottleneck effect of MAPs on wireless
access networks can be reduced or avoided. Furthermore,
less congestion translates to less packet delay at the MAPs
because of queuing. In [12], three heuristic, Kernighan
Lin-based partitioning algorithms are proposed to assign
ARs to MAPs and create overlapping MAP domains. The
aim was to minimise the total inter-area handover rate and
bottleneck effect of MAPs in HMIPv6 access networks.
In [13], a robust hierarchical mobile IPv6 (RH-MIPv6) was
proposed to enable MNs to register with more than one MAP.
However, the MAP selection is carried out randomly and
MNs register with MAPs regardless of quality of service
(QoS) requirements of trafc ows. Nevertheless, an MN
needs to consider several factors when selecting an optimal
MAP that minimises the total cost among various MAPs
available in a foreign network.
In this paper, an adaptive QoS aware multi-MAP
registration algorithm is proposed. Taking the ow-based
approach to micro mobility management; the proposed
MAP selection algorithm takes into consideration the load
status of MAPs along with the QoS requirements of ows.
The proposed algorithm separates the MAP selection
process for the high priority (HP) (i.e. ows with high QoS
requirement) and low priority (LP) ows (i.e. ows with
low QoS requirement). That is, for each HP ow, MN
selects an optimal MAP with respect to ows QoS
requirement, and for each LP ow, an MAP selection
mechanism is introduced to enable a more efcient use of
network resources with the purpose of load balancing in the
network. Moreover, an extended router advertisement
(ex-RA) is proposed to operate in conjunction with the
proposed algorithm.
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. In
Section 2, the overlapping MAP domain scheme is
introduced. In Section 3, the non-QoS aware MAP selection
algorithm in multi-MAP domain environment is outlined.
The proposed QoS aware MAP selection algorithm in a
multi-MAP domain HMIPv6 access network is outlined in
Section 4. In Section 5, the denitions and notations used
in mathematical modelling of the proposed MAP selection
algorithm are dened. Mathematical formulation of user
mobility model is provided in Section 6. Section 7
mathematically models a packet delay cost in network. In
Section 8, the mathematical formulation for selecting the
least utilised MAP is provided. Section 9 provides a
load-balancing model. In Section 10, the implementation
steps of the proposed algorithm are presented. In Section 11,
the performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated as a
function of degree of load balance and total amount of
bandwidth rejection in HMIPv6 access network with
overlapped MAP domains. Finally, Section 12 concludes
the paper.
2 HMIPv6 and MAP domain overlap
HMIPv6 [7] is an MA based micro mobility protocol
proposed by internet engineering task force to mitigate the
signalling cost and handover delay in an MIPv6, when
MNs perform frequent handovers. In HMIPv6 networks,
MAPs handle BU procedures locally because of handovers
within an MAP domain.
In HMIPv6, when an MN enters a new MAP domain, it
receives RA messages. The MN congures two
care-of-addresses (CoAs) and sends a local binding update
(LBU) message, to bind its local-care-of-address (LCoA)
with MAPs regional-care-of-addressed (RCoA). The MAP
stores the binding in the binding cache (BC) and forwards
the BU to the MNs HA and CNs. HA and the CNs are
only aware of the RCoA of the MN. All the trafc
originated from or terminated at the MN ow through the
MAP. When the MN moves within an MAP domain (by
performing an intra-domain handover), it only needs to
register the new LCoA with the MAP, by sending an LBU.
The RCoA does not change as long as the MN moves
within the same MAP domain; hence mobility signalling
does not leave the access network. If the MN migrates
between different MAP domains (by performing an
inter-domain handover), it has to inform the HA and CNs
of the change by sending global binding updates (GBUs).
In such architecture, an MAP is a single point of failure. If
it fails, its BC content will be lost. It is important for
communication networks to eliminate single points of
failures to provide high QoS. Thus, a network structure
should have some redundancy to avoid it.
An MAP domains boundary is dened by ARs advertising
the MAP information (MAP option) through RA, to the MNs
connected to them. Fig. 1 depicts a basic HMIPv6-based
architecture, where domains of MAPs are partially
overlapped. As an HMIPv6-aware MN (e.g. MN 1) enters
the access network, it receives MAP options, included in
ex-RA (introduced in Section 4.4.2) from its corresponding
AR (AR 3), regarding available MAPs (e.g. MAP 1 and
MAP 2). For each incoming ow, the MN selects the most
suitable MAP to satisfy the QoS requirements of that ow
(i.e. throughput and reliability). The MAP selection takes
Fig. 1 Handover siganlling in an overlapped MAP domain
topology in HMIPv6 network environment
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place by implementing the proposed algorithm, according to
the information provided in MAP options.
ARs located in overlapped areas of MAP domains (AR 3)
are enabled to distribute the load associated with them over
more than one MAP. Therefore when the current MAP (e.g.
MAP 1) is overloaded, the MNs connecting to AR 3 can be
managed by other available MAPs (e.g. MAP 2). Therefore
network is capable of managing more number of MNs by
means of balancing the trafc load among MAPs.
3 Robust hierarchical mobile IPv6
RH-MIPv6 provides fault tolerance and robustness in
networks. In such architecture, the MN congures two
RCoAs. One is the primary RCoA and the other is the
secondary RCoA (S-RCoA). MN registers both of the
RCoAs to the corresponding MAPs. The multiple RCoAs
are congured in advance and are dynamically changed
after failure detection by MNs or CNs.
In this scheme, each MN registers with two MAPs
regardless of the QoS requirements of trafc ows (e.g.
throughput, delay sensitivity and reliability) or MAPs load
status.
4 Adaptive QoS aware multi-MAP selection
algorithm
4.1 Overview
Selecting an appropriate MAP plays an important role in
providing sufcient mobile services. The non-optimal MAP
registration, proposed in [13], leads to service interruption
of HP ows, such as Voice over IP. This is because of
inefcient use of resources in the network, and an uneven
distribution of network load. Therefore some MAPs become
bottlenecks in network, whereas others are underutilised.
Also in [13], the dynamic change of registered RCoAs is
only triggered by MAP failure detection. This interprets to
the deciency of this mechanism to recover from MAP
overload and to avoid MAPs from becoming congested.
This forms the motivational basis of proposal of the
adaptive QoS aware multi-MAP selection algorithm.
The proposed algorithm separates the selection scheme for
the HP and LP ows, and considers several parameters in the
MAP selection process to minimise the total cost among
various available MAPs.
Sections 4.2 and 4.3 give details about how the MAP
related information is obtained, so as to the most
appropriate MAP is selected, by employing the proposed
algorithm, explained in Section 4.4.
4.2 Initialisation
Every time an MN enters an access network, it receives an
ex-RA (introduced in Section 4.4.2) from its current point
of attachment (or AR) and stores the received MAP option
(s) of the available MAPs in its MAP list. Storing the
options is essential, as they will be compared with other
options received later.
This MAP list consists of the hop-distances to each MAP,
which is obtained from the dist eld of MAP options.
Section 6 explains how the handover delay cost is
computed in the access network. The list also consists of
the current load status of MAPs, obtained from the MAP
utilisation eld of MAP options. The restriction imposed
on MAP bandwidth availability because of the capacity
constraint, makes bandwidth availability an essential input
to the proposed algorithm. The proposed algorithm makes
use of the information conveyed in these elds to determine
the packet delay cost imposed by each available MAP,
depending on the hop-distance and the load status values
included in the MAP options. The MAP utilisation eld
information can also be used to enforce load-balancing
policies or mechanisms in the network.
4.3 QoS estimation
Trafc classes differ in their QoS requirements as displayed in
Table 1.
4.4 QoS aware MAP selection
In our proposed MAP registration algorithm, the salient
assumption is that the MAP selection process takes place on
a per-ow basis. It is also assumed that the differentiated
services (DiffServ) [14] are used as the QoS forwarding
architecture in the HMIPv6 access network. Diffserv uses
the six-bit differentiated service code point (DSCP) in the
Differentiated Service (DS) eld in the header of IP packets
for packet classication purposes.
4.4.1 QoS mapping to the DSCP values of the IP
packet: Eight bits are allocated to type of service (ToS)
eld in the IP header [14]. It denes a mechanism for
assigning a priority to each IP packet and a mechanism to
request specic treatment such as high throughput, high
reliability or low latency. The upper six bits contain DSCP,
and the remaining two bits are reserved.
MNs associate these delivery priority values to differentiate
between the packets generated by them.
The rst six bits of DSCP are dened as follows
service T = b
0
, b
1
, b
2
, b
3
, b
4
, b
5

The three precedence bits from 0 to 2 are used to indicate the
priority of a packet. The higher the value of the IP precedence
eld, the higher the priority of the IP packet. For example
precedence 1 [0 0 1] indicates priority. The fourth bit
indicates whether low delay is preferred, the fth bit
Table 1 Various traffic types and their characteristics
Traffic type Application Class Delay tolerance Bandwidth request
conventional voice (phone) 1 extremely low 150 KBps
voice(teleconference) 2 low 500 KBps
streaming real-time 3 low 250 KBps
non-real-time 4 low 250 KBps
interactive web browsing 5 high 100 KBps
background email, data transfer 6 high 200 KBps
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indicates whether high throughput is preferred and the sixth
bit indicates whether reliability is preferred.
We dene a Boolean decision variable for each of these
three bits as follows
D =
1, packet requests low delay
0, otherwise

(1)
T =
1, packet requests high throughput
0, otherwise

(2)
R =
1, packet requests high reliability
0, otherwise

(3)
The endpoint is the most knowledgeable component in the
network as it understands applications. Therefore MNs
identify the trafc type and estimate the QoS requirements
(e.g. delay and bandwidth guarantee) of the incoming ow.
Various methods maybe used for this purpose, such as
employment of packet inspection [15], however, this lies
beyond the scope of this paper.
For each incoming rst marked packet of a ow at AR m,
MN checks the DS eld bits, and then selects an MAP among
the available MAPs, which meets the ow QoS requirements.
Note only the delay sensitive ows are considered as HP
ows and the rest are considered as LP ows. The three
possible QoS requirements are
if [D T R] = [1 0 0], low delay is requested.
if [D T R] = [1 1 0], high throughput is requested.
if [D T R] = [1 0 1], high reliability is requested.
By knowing the D, T and R bits, the proposed MAP
selection mechanism (described in Table 2) is executed.
For the best-effort trafc, considered as LP class of trafc, a
load-balancing mechanism (described in Section 8) is
deployed, which works towards distributing the load evenly
among MAPs.
4.4.2 Extended router advertisement: Router
solicitations (RSs) and RAs help the MN to identify that it
has changed its subnet and to provide the MN with the
necessary information to congure a new CoA. A novel RA
protocol as an extension to the standard RA is introduced,
to include the network measurement information. It utilises
the bits in the reserved eld to disseminate MAPs current
load status. This eld is renamed as MAP utilisation eld,
and the protocol is referred to as the ex-RA. Fig. 2 depicts
the modied MAP option format.
Similar to MIPv6, ARs send ex-RA messages both on a
regular basis and in response to MNs requesting for them
through RS messages [7]. There is a tradeoff between
accurateness of MAP selection and the sorting cost of MAP
options by MNs. If the number of ex-RA is W
RA
, then the
sorting cost is regarded as W
RA
logW
RA
[16]. The more
often the ex-RA is sent, the more accurate the MAP
selection; however, the more sorting cost and power
consumption.
4.4.3 Signalling procedure for multi-MAP
registration: Fig. 3 shows how an MN registers with
more than one MAP simultaneously in a multi-MAP
domain HMIPv6 network.
When an MN connects to a new AR, it obtains an ex-RA
message, containing information on locally available MAPs
(e.g. load information, hop-distance, RCoA, Life time etc).
Then, BUs are invoked by the MN. BU in the multi-MAP
per domain environment is similar to that of the HMIPv6.
However, other than MAPs keeping binding information
about MNs LCoA, and RCoA in their BC, MNs and CNs
keep binding information of MNs RCoAs. HA and CNs
identify an MN with only one RCoA at any instant of time,
which is related to the MNs current supporting MAP [or
the primary MAP (P-MAP)]. The P-MAP is selected
through implementation of procedures explained in Sections
4.2, 4.3 and 4.4.
After the MAP selection stage, MN sends an LBU message
to the MAP, which binds its LCoA, with MAPs RCoA as
MNs P-MAP. The RCoA is registered with the HA and the
CN of the MN. The MN must not use one RCoA (e.g.
RCoA 1) derived from an MAPs prex (e.g. MAP 1) as a
CoA in its BU to another MAP (e.g. MAP 2). This would
force packets to be encapsulated several times (twice in this
example) on their path to the MN. Subsequently, the MN
also registers its LCoA with a secondary MAP (S-MAP)
and registers its S-RCoA with the HA and the CNs. A new
ag is added to the BU message to differentiate between
the primary and secondary RCoA [17]. The secondary
RCoA is used by the MN in the following cases:
change in capability of the P-MAP (e.g. when P-MAP
becomes overloaded);
MAP failure.
Fig. 2 MAP option format in proposed ex-RA
Table 2 Algorithm-i
1 If flow n arrives at AR mM
2 If D= 1
3 Find MAPs
4 where for each k
5 L
T
likn
, Ha
n
6 D
T
n
, Da
n
7

m[M
k

n
B
n
mk
.x
nm
.z
mk
+h
k
z
k
8 If R= 1
9 nd MAP k
10 (14)(18)
11 If T = 1
12 nd MAP k
13 (32)(35)
14 If T = 0 and
R= 0
15 nd MAP k
16 (28)(31)
17 End
18 End
19 End
20 Else if D= 0
21 Find an
MAP
22 (35)(38)
23
End
End
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When either of the above scenarios arises in an access
network, MN selects the S-MAP from its BC and sends
data through the S-RCoA to CNs. The CNs consider the
P-MAP has failed when they receive packets from S-RCoA.
Consequently, CNs update their BCs. The MN sends a BU
with the S-CoA to HA as soon as possible.
CN acts in a similar manner to the MNs procedure in the
mentioned scenarios. In such conditions, CN searches
through its BC and sends the data through the S-MAP (i.e.
the S-RCoA of the MAP was congured in advance and
stored in the CNs BC). If an MN receives packets from the
S-MAP, the MN considers that P-MAP is no longer used.
Then, the MN sends GBU to HA and to the CN to update
their BCs.
This mechanism steers IP ows from one MAP to another,
while providing uninterrupted services to MNs. Note that
only the non-real-time IP ows are redirected. As a result,
MNs do not generate long BU registration delays as their
LCoAs are registered with the S-RCoAs prior to the need
for use of the S-MAP.
5 Network model
An access network is dened as a given undirected graph G
(V, E), where V is the set of nodes and E is the set of links
interconnecting nodes. Let KV be the set of routers that
serve as MAPs, and R be the number of MAPs in the
access network. Let MV be the set of ARs in the network
and N V be the set of MNs. For a given AR m M, let
K
m
K be the set of MAPs that are advertised by ARm. Let
M
m
M be a set of ARs adjacent to AR m, and k K
m
be a
given MAP. Let
k
represent the capacity of each MAP k.
6 Analytic user mobility model
In this section, taking into account several parameters, a cost
function for total handover signalling delay cost is developed.
Handover latency is dened by many factors such as
movement detection delay (MDD), address conguration
delay (ACD), and the location update delay. A number of
solutions exist to minimise the MDD and ACD delays, to
negligible amounts [18]. This paper focuses on the cost
attributed to the location update signalling delay.
The cost is built assuming a single MAP hierarchy.
6.1 Location update cost
Based on the location update model derived in [19], location
update costs because of intra-domain and inter-domain
handovers are developed in this section.
6.1.1 Unit intra-domain handover location update
cost: The cost of sending a BU message and receiving a
binding acknowledgement from MAP k, during an
intra-domain handover, is directly proportional to the
hop-distance between the AR m and MAP represented by
h
AR
m
MAP
k
. Let and be the unit costs when a location
update procedure is performed in wireless and a wired link,
respectively. The unit intra-domain handover location
update cost between AR i and AR m located in an MAP
domain is dened as follows [19]
H
in
imk
= h + h
AR
m
MAP
k
v

2 (4)
6.1.2 Unit inter-domain handover location update
cost: Inter-domain handover is dened as the cost of
sending the GBU from an AR m to the GW, while
traversing MAP k, plus the hop-distance from the GW to
HA and CNs. The unit inter-domain handover location
update cost because of an inter-domain handover between
two ARs (AR i and AR m), allocated in different MAP
domains, is expressed as follows [19]
H
out
imk
= v. l
AR
m
MAP
k
+C

2 (5)
We dene C as a xed number of hops between the GW and
HA, and the CN, which is dened as
C = h
GWCN
+h
GWHA
(6)
In addition, l
AR
m
MAP
k
, is dened as follows
l
AR
m
MAP
k
= h
AR
m
MAP
k
+h
MAP
k
GW
(7)
Similarly, h
MAP
k
GW
represents the hop-distance between
MAP
k
and GW.
6.2 Probability of MNs performing handover and
MNs movement direction
Trafc is modelled as ow requests. Incoming ows are
assumed to arrive independently following Poisson
Fig. 3 Flowchart of MNs operation
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distribution with an average value . The ow holding time
and residence time are assumed to be exponential random
variables with mean and n minutes, respectively.
Fig. 4 illustrates the handover probability for a variety of
ow holding times and residence times. The smaller the
residence time, the higher the mobility speed. Also the
average handover probability of ows decreases by
decreasing the mean rate of incoming ows to the access
network. One of the MAP selection criteria is the handover
delay cost. Therefore the mobility pattern has a great impact
on performance of the proposed algorithm.
Similar to [11], the probability of an MN performing
handover and the MN movement direction, and the
internal and external costs of ARs are taken into account
to model the expected handover signalling overhead in the
network. Let
im
be the handover probability of an MN
from AR i to AR m, (referred to as the direction
probability of AR m), and let
i
be the probability of an
MN being attached to AR i (referred to as the demand
probability).
6.3 Handover signalling delay cost
In order to be able to express the handover signalling delay
cost in a mathematical programming setting, we dene the
following Boolean decision variables:
x
nm
=
1, flow n is connected to AR
m
0, otherwise

(8)
y
imk
=
1, if AR
i
and AR
j
are assigned
to MAP
k
0, otherwise

(9)
z
mk
=
1, AR
m
is assigned to MAP
k
0, otherwise

(10)
For each ow n attached to AR m, the total expected
intra-domain and inter-domain handover signalling costs
between two adjacent ARs i and m are the probability of
handover occurrence multiplied by the handover cost,
which is given as (4) and (5), respectively
L
in
im
=

k[k
m

j[M
i
H
in
imk
y
imk
x
ni
r
i
a
im
i [ M, n [ N
(11)
L
out
im
=

k[k
m

m[M
i
H
out
imk
1 y
imk

x
ni
r
i
a
im
i [ M, n [ N
(12)
In RH-MIPv6, when an MN attaches to an AR (AR
c
) that can
access more than one MAP, the probability of any of the
accessible MAPs to be selected follows a uniform
distribution. Then, MN registers with an MAP (MAP
c
). The
MN migrates to a new AR (AR
n
) coverage area according
to the direction probability of its AR
c
. If AR
n
can access
MAP
c
, then the handover is classied as an intra-domain
handover, otherwise an inter-domain handover. However,
by an intelligent selection of MAP, the handover delay can
be reduced considerably. In view of that, an MAP selection
algorithm is proposed in Table 2.
Let N
r
N represents a subset of ows with high reliability
requirements. For each n N
r
attached to AR i, the handover
signalling cost imposed by each MAP k accessible by AR i is
computed. The cost is sum cost of expected intra-domain and
inter-domain handover signalling costs, formulated in (11)
and (12), respectively
L
T
ikn
= L
in
im
+L
out
im
, k [ K
i
,
n [ N
r
i [ M, m [ M
i
(13)
For each ow nN
r
, the objective is to select an MAP, where
the handover signalling delay cost is minimised.
L

= min
k[K
i
L
T
ikn

(14)
Subject to
2y
imk
z
mk
+z
ik
, m, i [ M, k [ K (15)

k
z
mk
1, m [ V (16)

m[M
x
nm
= 1, n [ N
r
(17)
x
nm
, z
mk
, y
imk
[ 0, 1 { }, n [ N
r
i, m [ M, k [ K
(18)
Constraint (15) ensures that y
imk
can only take the value 1 if
both nodes i and m are assigned to MAP k, constraint (16)
ensures each AR is assigned to at least one MAP, whereas
constraint (17) ensures each ow is attached to one AR and
constraints (18) ensure that x
nm
, z
mk
and y
imk
are binary
values (e.g. either 0 or 1).
7 Packet delay cost
7.1 Average packet delay model in the access
network
The average packet delay cost consists of the delay costs of
the propagation, processing and queuing [6]. The queuing
delay can be deemed negligible, when the trafc load is Fig. 4 Hanover probability against residence time
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doi: 10.1049/iet-net.2012.0141 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014
well below the capacity of the network (unloaded network).
When MAPs are deployed in the network topology,
creating bottlenecks, queuing needs to be explicitly taken in
consideration. The processing delay incurred by a network
entity, depends on its load status. We assume the
transmission delay cost is proportional to the distance
between the source and destination. The longer the distance
is, the larger is the round trip time experienced by MN.
7.2 Queuing delay cost
Using Kleinrocks independence approximation [20], each
link/edge can be modelled as an M/M/1 queue. It is
assumed that bottlenecks are at MAPs in the network.
Let B
n
mk
be the bandwidth request associating with ow n,
attached to AR m and traversing MAP k. We dene the total
bandwidth utilisation of MAP k, as follows
h
k
=

m[M

n[N
B
n
mk
x
nm
z
mk
_ _
, k [ K
m
(19)
By Littles law, the packet queuing delay cost in MAP k is
modelled as follows
P
APQ
k
=
1
6
k
h
k
(20)
Hence, the packet queuing delay cost at MAP k experienced
by ow n, connected to AR m, is as follows
P
APQ
nk
=
1
6
k
h
k
x
nm
z
mk
i [ V, k [ K
m
(21)
7.3 Transmission and the processing delay costs
In this section, the transmission and the processing delay
costs at each network entity such as HA and MAP are
developed, based on the model derived in [21]. The sum
transmission and the processing delay cost (referred to as
the packet delivery cost) incurred from the CN to an MAP
is presented as follows
D
CNMAP
= l b h
CNHA
+h
HAMAP
_ _
+l E(S) 1
_ _
b h
CNMAP
+l P
HA
(22)
where h
i j
represents the distance between the two entities of
i and j in the network and E(S) is the average ow size (in the
unit packet). In addition, is the unit transmission cost in a
wired link and P
HA
denotes the processing cost at the HA.
Similarly, the packet delivery cost from an MAP to AR D
MAP AR
is as follows
D
MAPAR
= l E(S) P
MAP
b h
ARMAP
_ _
(23)
where P
MAP
is the processing cost of the MAP, including a
lookup and a packet encapsulation/decapsulation costs. The
lookup cost of an MAP is assumed to be proportional to the
logarithm of the number of ows managed by that MAP
[21] and the packet encapsulation/decapsulation cost is a
constant value. Hence, the processing cost of MAP k is as
follows
P
MAP
k
= d log

m[M
k
x
nm
_ _
+O (24)
is a weighing factor and O is the encapsulation and
decapsulation cost.
The last component is the packet delivery cost in the
wireless link between AR and MN, denoted by D
ARMN
.
D
ARMN
= l E(S) j (25)
where is the unit transmission cost in wireless link.
Let N
d
N represents a subset of ows with low delay
tolerability. Hence, the average packet delivery cost of
MAP k experienced by ow n, connected to AR m, is as
follows
D
total
nk
= D
CNMAP
k
+D
MAPAR
m
_
+D
AR
m
MN
n
_
x
nm
z
mk
,
k [ K
m
(26)
Using (26) and (21), the packet delay cost at MAP k for ow
n, connected to AR m, is given as
D
T
n
= D
total
nk
+D
APQ
nk
, i [ V, k [ K
m
, n [ N
d
(27)
For each ow n N
d
, the objective is to select an MAP, where
the packet delay cost is minimised
D

=
n[N
d
, k[K
m
D
T
n
_ _
(28)
subject to

k
z
mk
1, m [ V (29)

m[M
x
nm
= 1, n [ N
d
(30)
x
nm
, z
mk
, y
imk
[ {0, 1}, n [ N
d
i, m [ M, k [ K
(31)
Constraint (29) ensures each AR is assigned to at least one
MAP, constraint (30) ensures each ow is attached to one
AR, and constraints, whereas constraint (31) ensures that
x
nm
, z
mk
and y
imk
are binary values (e.g. either 0 or 1).
8 Flows with high-throughput requirement
In this section, a linear problem formulation of selecting the
least utilised MAP for a ow with high-throughput
requirement is provided. Let N
t
N represents a subset of
ows with high-throughput requirements and B
n
mk
be the
bandwidth request associated with ow n, attached to AR
m. The least utilised MAP based on (19), is given as follows:
h

= min
k[K
m
h
k
_ _
(32)
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182 IET Netw., 2014, Vol. 3, Iss. 3, pp. 176186
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014 doi: 10.1049/iet-net.2012.0141
subject to

m[M
k

n
B
n
mk
x
nm
z
mk

+h
k
6
k
(33)
B
n
mk
0, n [ N, m [ V, k [ K (34)
x
nm
, z
mk
, [ 0, 1 { }, n [ N
t
, m [ M, k [ K (35)
Constraint (33) ensures MAP capacity is satised for all
MAPs, constraint (34) ensures bandwidth requirement of
ows are non-zero and constraint (35) ensures that x
nm
and
z
mk
are binary values (e.g. either 0 or 1).
9 Load balancing model
An MAP is congested when its total bandwidth utilisation
exceeds the bandwidth utilisation threshold . The threshold
is dened as 80% of the MAPs total capacity. Assuming
that 80% is the expected trafc percentage.
In the proposed algorithm, for HP ows, MAPs are
selected to satisfy the ows QoS requirements, whereas a
new MAP selection mechanism is proposed for LP trafc
ows. The objective is for each LP ow, an MAP is
selected to provide better load balance within network.
Based on the load balance model derived in [22], we
develop a balance criterion as follows:
An MAP domain k is balanced if all MAP domains satisfy
the balance criterion
h
low
h
k
h
up
(36)
where
h
low
= h
total
/R

1 w

(37)
h
up
= h
total
/R

1 +w

(38)
Also
total
is dened as follows
h
total
=

k
h
k
, k [ K (39)

total
represents the total bandwidth request in the network.

low
and
up
represent the lower and upper bandwidth
utilisation thresholds for each MAP domain, respectively
and is a parameter satisfying 0 < < 1. Constraints (37)
and (38) specify a range for MAP k, within which the MAP
is accepted as balanced. The smaller the value, the tighter
the constraint is. The value 0.1 is used for in our
implementation as in the similar work [22]. Therefore for
each LP ow, MN selects an MAP, which provides the best
load balance in the network.
10 Proposed algorithm
Every time an MN enters an access network, it receives an
ex-RA (introduced in Section 4.4.2) from its current point
of attachment and stores the received MAP option(s) of the
available MAPs in its MAP list. The MAP list consists of
the dist eld, MAP utilisation eld (introduced in
Section 4.4.3).
MNs extract the necessary information received in MAP
options for available MAPs (e.g. hop-distance and the MAP
trafc load status) and determine the handover delay cost
(formulated by (13) in Section 6.3) and the packet delay
cost (dened in (26) in Section 7.3) imposed by each
available MAP.
MNs identify the trafc type and estimate the QoS
requirements of the incoming ow and use delivery priority
values to differentiate between the packets generated by
them (explained in Section 4.4.1). By knowing the D, T
and R bits (the fourth, fth and sixth bits of the DSCP in
the IP header), the proposed MAP selection mechanism
(described in Table 2) is executed. There are three possible
QoS requirements, (i) low-delay requirement, (ii) high
throughput requirement and (iii) high reliability
requirement. Line 1: in the proposed algorithm, for HP
ows, MAPs are selected to satisfy the ows QoS
requirements. Lines 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7: let D
an
and H
an
represent the minimum acceptable bound for required
handover delay and packet delay for ow n, respectively.
Using this information, for each ow n, if ow is delay
sensitive, the algorithm selects a serving MAP to satisfy the
ows QoS. Therefore MAPs that meet the acceptable
handover delay (line 5), packet delay (line 6) requirements
of the ow and also meet the MAP capacity constraint (line
7) are selected. The MAP capacity constraints ensure that
the total amount of trafc load going through each MAP is
not greater than the capacity of that MAP. Then
lines 8, 9 and 10: if ow requires high reliability, the MAP
with minimum handover delay cost is selected;
lines 11, 12 and 13: if ow requires high throughput, the
least utilised MAP is selected; and
lines 14, 15 and 16: if ow requires high reliability, the
MAP with minimum packet delay cost is selected.
Lines 20, 21 and 22: for the best-effort trafc, considered
as LP class of trafc, a load-balancing mechanism is
deployed, which selects an MAP to meet the balance
criteria dened in (36) and works towards distributing the
load evenly among MAPs.
Table 2 shows how the most suitable MAP is selected.
11 Simulation setup and evaluation
A simulation-based study is developed using MATLAB,
which supports hierarchical mobile IP architecture. Fig. 5
outlines the network simulation topology. Dashed lines
show possible user movements between ARs, and solid
lines present wired links between routers. The ARs are
connected to MAPs through intermediate routers, having
point to point wired links, with 10 ms delay allocated to
each link. The MAPs are connected to HA and CN via
wired network. The choice of having a one layer MAP
hierarchy is to focus the research on the overlapping MAP
domains in a single hierarchy level.
By expanding the size of the MAP domain overlapping
regions, the trafc ows are more evenly distributed in the
network. This is achieved by making the residual capacity
of the lightly loaded MAPs available to ARs located in the
overlapped regions of MAP domains. Implementations
network partitioning in real-time requires the size of
overlapping regions between MAP coverage areas to
dynamically shrink or expand depending on MNs mobility
parameters, addressed in details in [11]. However, this lies
beyond the scope of this paper. Over expanding the MAP
domains over the neighbouring domains increases the
intra-domain handover rate considerably. Hence, the total
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doi: 10.1049/iet-net.2012.0141 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014
handover signalling overhead in the network increases as a
result of overlap formation instead of being decreased. In
addition, as the number of ARs located in the overlapping
region expands; the residual capacities of the MAPs to
which ARs are assigned to is shared by the new AR(s).
Hence, reductions in load concentration on the congested
MAPs are achieved with the cost of an increase in trafc
load on the new MAP. However, once MAPs reach their
maximum capacity usage, further expansion of overlapped
regions between MAP domains has no longer an impact on
congestion reduction of bottlenecks. Owing to these
remarks in a single MAP hierarchy, in our simulation a
xed 50% overlap size between MAP domains is permitted.
Consequently, the focus is to evaluate the performance of
the proposed intelligent multi-MAP registration algorithm
(in network with overlapping MAP domains) in this paper
and the algorithm proposed in [13], which does not
consider QoS of ows in process of MAP registration.
The capacity of each MAP is set to 3 Mbps. The ow
bandwidth requests are uniformly distributed within the
interval of (100500 KBps), representing from web to video
applications. The ows are classied into six different
trafc class types. Then, three different bits of D, R and T
are assigned to each ow indicating their corresponding
class types. Table 3 shows the used parameters for packet
delay cost measurements.
The average rate of Poisson distributed incoming ows is
set as = 10. The means of exponentially distributed ows
holding time and residence time are set as = 20 min and
n = 5 min, respectively.
Figs. 6a and b present the percentage of bandwidth
consumption of MAPs over a certain period of time. In
Fig. 6a, the ow requests enter the access network, and
become distributed across MAPs according to the non-QoS
aware multi-MAP registration scheme proposed in [13].
Fig. 6b illustrates the distribution of ow requests across the
network MAPs according to the proposed algorithm
illustrated in Table 2. The simulations begin at t = 0s.
Fig. 6a shows that MAP 1 and MAP 2 are constantly
selected and reach the 80% utilisation threshold, at t = 25s
and t = 45s, respectively. Therefore the non-optimal
selection of MAPs leads to rapid increase in bandwidth
utilisation of these two MAPs, and makes them points of
bandwidth aggregation in the network, whereas MAP 3 and
MAP 4 stay underutilised.
It is evident in Fig. 6b that the maximum utilisation of
MAPs in the network remains at 65% of the total MAP
capacity and does not reach their maximum capacities. This
is because of accessibility of trafc ows to more MAP
resources (capacity) for ARs located in the overlapped
region of MAP domains. In addition, severe bottleneck
congestion around MAPs is mitigated, hence enhancing the
network performance in terms of increasing network
throughput. Fig. 6b also illustrates that the trafc load is
more uniformly distributed among MAPs as a result of the
Table 3 System parameters
O E(S) P
HA
1.0 2.0 0.5 2.0 10 40
Fig. 5 Simulation network topology
Fig. 6
a MAP bandwidth utilisation in RH-MIPv6
b Bandwidth utilisation, with the proposed algorithm in use
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184 IET Netw., 2014, Vol. 3, Iss. 3, pp. 176186
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014 doi: 10.1049/iet-net.2012.0141
proposed algorithm implementation in the network, than by
implementation of the proposed algorithm in [13] (Fig. 6a).
Fig. 7 shows as the trafc demand increases in the
overlapping MAP domain environment, more number of
ows are admitted to the network and network throughput
increases in turn. Therefore it is clearly evident that the
proposed algorithm performs more efciently by a
considerable margin, than the one proposed in [13] by
increasing the mean satised bandwidth demands of ows
by maximum of 74%.
In order to evaluate the impact of proposed load-balancing
algorithm in terms of users perceived performance of the
network, the amount of bandwidth rejection is measured
against time. Fig. 8 illustrated the total bandwidth rejection
in the network within a specic duration of time.
Fig. 8 illustrates that the total bandwidth rejected is the
network increases as more ows arrive to the network. It
also shows the total bandwidth rejected in the network is
considerably higher in [13], than that of caused by the
employment of proposed algorithm. The weak performance
of RH-MIPv6 is a result of a random MAP selection;
hence, an uneven distribution of trafc between MAPs
(which is evident in Fig. 6a). Additionally, with no
overlapping regions between MAP domains, the trafc load
initiated from ARs located in an MAP domain is restricted
to ow through only that MAP. Consequently, the MAP
becomes congested and no more ows are accommodated
by that MAP, and the new ows are rejected. The reduction
in average bandwidth rejection achieved by the proposed
algorithm is because of the shift of LP ows from the
highly utilised MAPs to the lightly loaded MAPs. The
proposed scheme selects alternative MAPs for LP ows
rather than forcing all trafc ows through the same MAP
(i.e. as proposed in [13]) to ensure a uniform load
distribution between MAPs. Thus, employing the proposed
algorithm in the network yields 71% reduction in total
bandwidth rejection in the network.
12 Conclusions
In this paper, the effect of overlapping domain regions of
consecutive MAPs on the trafc distribution and the
degree of load balance between MAPs is studied.
Introduction of overlapping MAP domains in the same
hierarchy level of HMIPv6-based network architecture
enforces the need for multiple registrations of MAPs for
MNs. This paper proposes an adaptive QoS aware
multiple MAP registration algorithm, which separates the
selection scheme for the HP and LP ows. For each HP
ow, the proposed algorithm selects the most suitable
MAP based on QoS requirements of the ow, whereas for
each LP ow an explicit MAP selection is employed,
which provides the best balance, in terms of bandwidth
utilisation among MAPs. The simulation results illustrate
that implementing the proposed algorithm in the novel
network architecture, provides more available resources for
HP ows, in comparisons with the multi-MAP registration
proposed in [13], in non-overlapping MAP domain access
networks. Accordingly, a maximum of 71% drop in
total ow bandwidth rejection is obtained. In addition, the
mean satised ow bandwidth demand is increased by a
maximum of 74%. This improvement is because of shift
of LP ows from the heavily loaded MAPs to more
lightly loaded ones. The trafc shift also has a
load-balancing impact among MAPs. Consequently,
congestion in the network decreases, whereas QoS of HP
ows are satised.
13 Acknowledgment
The authors thank Alexandre Jaron for his helpful
suggestions.
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186 IET Netw., 2014, Vol. 3, Iss. 3, pp. 176186
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014 doi: 10.1049/iet-net.2012.0141