Pre-Allocation of DHCP Leases: A Cross-Layer Approach

IP reconfiguration using DHCP is the usual approach followed by mobile nodes (MNs) when they roam from one network to another one. However, DHCP is too slow for cooping with fast handover requirements. This article describes a cross-layer approach for accelerating DHCP-based IP reconfigurations in a mobility scenario across 802.11 access points (APs). DHCP transactions are initiated by neighboring APs on behalf of an MN and may be completed by the time the MN gets associated to them after an handover. Many DHCP transactions for the same MN may run in parallel but they do not impact the wireless connection of the MN. The performance evaluation in a real environment showed a considerable performance enhancement in the post-handover IP reconfiguration, that was reduced from seconds down to 300 ms.