Hi Jari,

Comments inline:

On Oct 28, 2011, at 7:21 AM, ext Jari Arkko wrote:

> And a follow-up on the charter. I'm describing a couple of different takes on 
> what the new charter could be. Comments and alternative proposals are 
> welcome. This is what the current charter says about DMM:
> 
>>   The working group will also work on operational considerations on
>>   setting up Mobile IPv6 networks so that traffic is distributed
>>   in an optimal way, for instance by using existing protocol mechanisms
>>   to select the closest home agents for new clients.
>> 
>>   Oct 2011 - Submit I-D 'Operational considerations for distributed use of 
>> Mobile IPv6' for publication as Informational.
> 
> Which is admittedly a bit short, but is also very concrete and achievable, if 
> we work on it. I got another proposal from Hui Deng that extended this a bit, 
> including going beyond mere operational considerations.
> 
>> In the past decade a fair number of mobility protocols have been 
>> standardized. Although the protocols differ in terms of functions and 
>> associated message format, we can identify a few key common features:
>> presence of a centralized mobility anchor providing global reachability and 
>> an always-on experience
>> extensions to optimize handover performance while users roam across wireless 
>> cells
>> extensions to enable the use of heterogeneous wireless interfaces for 
>> multi-mode terminals (e.g. cellular phones)

What does "extensions to enable the use of heterogeneous wireless interfaces 
for multi-mode terminals (e.g. cellular phones" this imply? The term always-on 
does not necessarily apply as well. If an MN is registered with an HA it is 
reachable but always-on would require the MN to be network-attached and 
registered with an HA which may not always be the case.


>> The presence of the centralized mobility anchor allows a mobile device to be 
>> reachable when it is not connected to its home domain.

What is a home domain for a user/MN? 

>> The anchor, among other tasks, ensures forwarding of packets destined to or 
>> sent from the mobile device. As such, most of the deployed architectures 
>> today have a small number of centralized anchors managing the traffic of 
>> millions of mobile subscribers.
>> 
>> To optimize handovers for mobile users, the base protocols have been 
>> extended to efficiently handle packet forwarding between the previous and 
>> new points of attachment. These extensions are necessary when applications 
>> impose stringent requirements in terms of delay. Notions of localization and 
>> distribution of local agents have been introduced to reduce signalling 
>> overhead. Unfortunately today we witness difficulties in getting such 
>> protocols deployed, often leading to sub-optimal choices. Moreover, all the 
>> availability of multi-mode devices and the possibility to use several 
>> network interfaces simultaneously have motivated the development of more new 
>> protocol extensions.

The comment about deployment of the Mobile IP protocols is irrelevant in this 
context. 

>> 
>> Mobile users are, more than ever, consuming Internet content, and impose new 
>> requirements on mobile core networks for data traffic delivery. When this 
>> traffic demand exceeds available capacity, service providers need to 
>> implement new strategies such as selective traffic offload (e.g. 3GPP work 
>> items LIPA/SIPTO) through alternative access networks (e.g. WLAN). Moreover, 
>> the localization of content providers closer to the Mobile/Fixed Internet 
>> Service Providers network requires taking into account local Content 
>> Delivery Networks (CDNs) while providing mobility services.  

Offloading to wifi or the fact that CDNs are used for content delivery are 
really not a motivator for DMM.

>> 
>> As long as demand exceeds capacity, both offloading and CDN techniques could 
>> benefit from the development of more flat mobile architectures (i.e., fewer 
>> levels of routing hierarchy introduced into the data path by the mobility 
>> management system).

Would you consider a P-GW/GGSN as introducing multiple levels of routing 
hierarchy? In Internet architecture terms the P-GW/GGSN is the NAS/Gateway 
router. 

>> This view is reinforced by the shift in users’ traffic behaviour, aimed at 
>> increasing direct communications among peers in the same geographical area.

This is highly speculative. What study shows that users traffic behavior 
displays such characteristics?

>> The development of truly flat mobile architectures would result in anchoring 
>> the traffic closer to point of attachment of the user and overcoming the 
>> suboptimal routing issues of a centralized mobility scheme.

What is a truly flat mobile architecture?

>> 
>> While deploying today’s mobile networks, service providers face new 
>> challenges. More often than not, mobile devices remain attached to the same 
>> point of attachment, in which case specific IP mobility management support 
>> is not required for applications that launch and complete while connected to 
>> the same point of attachment. However, the mobility support has been 
>> designed to be always on and to maintain the context for each mobile 
>> subscriber as long as they are connected to the network. This can result in 
>> a waste of resources and ever-increasing costs for the service provider. 
>> Infrequent mobility and intelligence of many applications suggest that 
>> mobility can be provided dynamically, thus simplifying the context 
>> maintained in the different nodes of the mobile network.
>> 
>> The proposed charter will address two complementary aspects of mobility 
>> management procedures: the distribution of mobility anchors to achieve a 
>> more flat design and the dynamic activation/deactivation of mobility 
>> protocol support as an enabler to distributed mobility management. The 
>> former has the goal of positioning mobility anchors (HA, LMA) closer to the 
>> user; ideally, these mobility anchors could be collocated with the first hop 
>> router. The latter, facilitated by the distribution of mobility anchors, 
>> aims at identifying when mobility must be activated and identifying sessions 
>> that do not impose mobility management -- thus reducing the amount of state 
>> information to be maintained in the various mobility anchors of the mobile 
>> network. The key idea is that dynamic mobility management relaxes some 
>> constraints while also repositioning mobility anchors; it avoids the 
>> establishment of non optimal tunnels between two anchors topologically 
>> distant. 
>> 
>> Considering the above, the working group will:
>> 
>> Define the problem statement and associated requirements for distributed 
>> mobility management. This work aims at defining the problem space and 
>> identifies the key functional requirements.
>> 
>> Produce a gap analysis mapping the above requirements against existing 
>> solutions.

Gap analysis is an academic exercise and not worth the effort of a WG.

>> 
>> Give best practices for the deployment of existing mobility protocols in a 
>> distributed mobility management and describe limitations of each such 
>> approach.

I think this is the most sane proposal in terms of how existing protocols can 
be deployed to address concerns that have been highlighted in various I-Ds.

>> 
>> Describe extensions, if needed, to current mobility protocols for their 
>> application in distributed mobility architectures

Yes. As needed.

-Basavaraj

> 
> Comments?
> 
> Jari
> 
> _______________________________________________
> MEXT mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mext

_______________________________________________
MEXT mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mext

Reply via email to