S-PMIPv6: An intra-LMA model for IPv6 mobility

IPv6 defined in RFC 2460 in the mid-1990s is an improved and streamlined successor version of IP version 4 (IPv4). It is designed to coexist with IPv4, while providing better internetworking capabilities than this successor version. Mobile IP enables a mobile node to be recognized via a single IP address even though the node is traveling from one network to another. Despite reposition among different networks, connectivity at different positions is attained continuously with no user intervention. Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6), as a network-based mobility management protocol, was released in 2008 by the IETF in RFC 5213 to support IP mobility. But during MN's handover, disconnection of a network link cannot absolutely be avoided. The IETF later in 2010 in RFC 5949 proposed Fast Proxy Mobile IPv6 (F-PMIPv6 for short) protocol, which was designed to mainly improve the reliability of its switching process, particularly for reducing its handover latency and packet loss rate, as well as lowering the probability of network-link disconnection. On the other hand, no matter how fast a handover is, its delay does unavoidably exist. It in turn rises the packet loss rate. Therefore, in this study, we propose a novel MIPv6 family protocol, called SCTP-based Proxy Mobile IPv6 (S-PMIPv6 for short), which integrates F-PMIPv6 with Stream Control Transmission Protects (SOP for short) and route optimization to enhance its IP mobility reliability and achieve the stage of seamless handover. Our simulation demonstrates that S-PMIPv6 can actually "make" before "break", effectively shorten end-to-end delay of packet delivery and lower packet loss rate. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.