Anchor-based routing optimization extension for Proxy Mobile IPv6 in flat architectures

Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) relies on centralized data and signaling anchoring. Communications of mobile users are tunneled to and from a local mobility anchor (LMA) for routing decision. In a hierarchical architecture this centralization generates bottlenecks and scalability issues. In distributed architectures, PMIPv6 could be extended and optimized to take advantage of the distribution of network functions. This paper proposes a PMIPv6 extension to perform routing optimization in flat and distributed architectures. The key idea is that data traffic performances can be improved by re-considering anchors location. In a distributed architecture, the LMA would attribute the most adapted anchor to handle a flow with regards to the network usage. The anchor could be relocated to follow mobility of the user for instance. Basically, the extension allows the LMA to control the data path of a flow from the source to the destination by determining one or several intermediate anchor(s) to traverse. One intermediate anchor could be chosen to achieve near-zero triangular data path, to apply a specific type of service on the flow (e.g., buffering, charging, filtering, etc.), to offload the flow to a specific network, or to perform smart traffic steering.