Architecture for IP mobility

Abstract

The Mobile IP protocol specifies an IP mobility solution for both IPv4 and IPv6. It introduces the concept of a home agent (HA) and a foreign agent (FA) which are essential pieces in the architecture. The main goal is to achieve seamless mobility as the mobile node moves from its home subnet to any other point of attachment. MIP, however, has limitations with routing, handoff, and security. The IP mobility (IPM) architecture proposed in this paper is a high level is derived from the Mobile IP, but compensates for its limitations. This architecture introduces the concept of a serving mobility manager (SMM) in the serving network and a home mobility manager (HMM) in the home network of the mobile user, among other additional components. The framework provides security through IPSec along both the data and the control planes. It also provides a mechanism for improving handoffs. IPM provides seamless application layer mobility for upper layer protocols such as SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), which is a signaling protocol for controlling sessions such as Internet multimedia conferences, Internet telephone calls and multimedia distribution.