Load balancing of local mobility anchors in proxy mobile IPv6 networks

Abstract

Mobile Access Gateways and Local Mobility Anchors exchange mobility related signaling messages on behalf of Mobile Nodes (MNs) to support mobility in Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) networks. Thus, MNs maintain their connections whilst roaming network domains without the need of a mobility protocol stack. However, with the large number of MNs in a PMIPv6 domain, the loads on the network entities grow. In particular, LMA has higher probability of reaching a severe load level, since LMA handles every packet that all the MNs in the domain send and receive. Thus, this paper proposes a load balancing scheme for LMAs in PMIPv6 networks where more than one LMA exist in the domain. The proposed scheme distributes loads of LMAs evenly, therefore enhances the overall efficiency of the network. Simulation shows the proposed scheme effectively balances the loads of LMA and reduces total packet loss rate by 3%.