wiki:HandoverTestbedSummary

Version 4 (modified by ljw725@gmail.com, 8 years ago) (diff)

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Handover solution for Geni Wireless

The Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) is a NSF sponsored effort to create a large scale testbed for network experimentation. One feature of GENI is its use of OpenFlow (OF), a specification implemented by switches or routers that allows the forwarding plane to be modified by a controller in software. Recently, GENI has made strides towards enabling experimentation over wireless resources. It is a priority for GENI to provide mobile hosts with seamless vertical handovers using IPv4-compatible methods within GENI's heterogeneous wireless networks. This feature is desirable to researchers testing network applications as well as vertical handover decision algorithms.

Our contribution to this effort is the design of an OF-based, IPv4-compatible vertical handover testbed for use with GENI wireless networks. In the spirit of GENI, researchers will be able to reserve and utilize the resources in our implementation of this testbed. However, due to the nature of wireless research, we anticipate that other researchers may need an implementation of the testbed on their own campus. Therefore, the majority of this paper describes the details of how we applied, designed, and implemented the framework to provide a versatile testbed. An understanding of the challenges and issues we encountered and resolved will provide insight and guidance to other researchers who plan on implementing this testbed on their campus.

System Framework

The system framework utilizes OF to achieve IP mobility and application-transparent handovers. It is designed to be easily deployed to universities that have OF-enabled campuses or that can provide a subnet or VLAN for handover experimentation. The framework was developed and implemented at Clemson as a part of the GENI WiMAX project. Fig. \ref{clemson-geni-handover} provides a general overview of how our testbed is constructed and how it integrates with the large-scale GENI testbed. At the architectural level, the framework allows OF-enabled mobile devices to roam across any OF-enabled wireless network. It requires a root OF switch as the testbed ingress/egress, as well as OF switches at each edge network. The challenge in building a testbed based on the framework is the required integration with existing network infrastructure at the campus. The testbed allows a mobile device to roam from wireless Network X (as illustrated in Fig. \ref{clemson-geni-handover}) to Network Y, preserving end-to-end socket connections that the device has with other hosts located either on the campus network or in the Internet. With these minimal assumptions, the testbed can be as simple or as complicated as desired. The design of our testbed can be divided into two major components: the network-level and the client-level.

[[Image:(clemson-geni-handover.png)]]

Figure 1. Design of the Clemson Geni Handover Testbed

HandoverTestbed Steps to use the testbed?

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