A Network Architecture for Providing Micro-Mobility in MPLS/GMPLS Networks

The mobile plane architecture (MPA) is a network architecture that provides micro-mobility in a network-centric way, that is, the burden of supporting micro-mobility is placed on the network and not on the mobile nodes. MPA employs an overlay network above an IPv4 or IPv6 transport network in order to direct traffic to the mobile nodes. The overlay network is built by establishing point-to-multipoint (P2MP) tunnels through the transport network. This paper presents an implementation of MPA over MPLS/GMPLS networks. It is shown that the combination of P2MP tunneling with label stacking is an effective way for providing mobility services in MPLS/GMPLS transport networks. Results obtained in a lab-sized network are presented as well.