Virtual mobility domains — A mobility architecture for the future Internet

This paper presents a novel mobility architecture called Virtual Mobility Domains that is designed to work with the Floating Cloud Tiered Internetworking model. Virtual Mobility Domains supports both inter Autonomous System (macro) and intra Autonomous System (micro) mobility by leveraging a tiered addressing, a network cloud concept, and a unique packet forwarding scheme introduced by the Floating Cloud Tiered Internetworking model. The proposed mobility architecture is distinct from others by not using IP addressing and classic routing protocols, and deploying user-centric overlapping mobility domains. The comparative simulation study of Virtual Mobility Domains against Mobile IPv6, Hierarchical Mobile IPv6, and Proxy Mobile IPv6 using OPNET shows that Virtual Mobility Domains brings lower latency, lesser signaling overhead, and fewer packets loss during handoffs, specially during inter Autonomous System roaming. The results highlight the potential for a seamless mobility management.