An analytical framework for performance evaluation of IPv6-based mobility management protocols

Mobility management with provision of seamless handover is crucial for an efficient support of global roaming of mobile nodes (MNs) in next-generation wireless networks (NGWN). Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) and its extensions were proposed by IETF for IP layer mobility management. However, performance of IPv6-based mobility management schemes is highly dependent on traffic characteristics and user mobility models. Consequently, it is important to assess this performance in-depth through those two factors. The performance of IPv6-based mobility management schemes is usually evaluated through simulations. This paper proposes an analytical framework to evaluate the performance of IPv6-based mobility management protocols. This proposal does not aim to advocate which is better but rather to study the effects of various network parameters on the performance of these protocols to enlighten decision-making. The effect of system parameters, such as subnet residence time, packet arrival rate and wireless link delay, is investigated for performance evaluation with respect to various metrics like signaling overhead cost, handoff latency and packet loss. Numerical results show that there is a trade-off between performance metrics and network parameters.