Enhanced fast BSS transition on enterprise WLAN with SDN-based distribution system

One of the challenges in QoS-aware realtime mobile multimedia service provisioning through WLANs is QoS-aware fast BSS (Basic Service Set) transition. Since most WiFi access points (APs) do not provide fast BSS transition (FT), changing currently connected AP to another takes several seconds during which mobile services are disrupted. In this paper, we propose an enhanced fast BSS transition scheme for seamless mobile broadband multimedia service provisioning and load balancing. The proposed scheme is based on i) cognitive management of WLAN ESS with SDN-based distribution system that allows checking for resource availability before selecting a candidate target AP, ii) QoS-aware roaming/handover with resource request over distribution system(DS), and iii) proactive forwarding table updates of SDN-based distribution system. The proposed scheme had been implemented and evaluated in a real IEEE 802.11n testbed environment, and the performance measurements showed enhanced QoS provisioning with minimized service disruption time and packet loss compared with existing approaches.