Method and Apparatus for Providing a Distributed Forwarding Plane for a Mobility Home Agent

• US 20090086734A1
• Filed: 09/27/2007
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Woo, Thomas Y., Nandagopal, Thyagarajan
• Granted Patent: US 8,238,314 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/392
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/082 for traffic bypassing of mobility servers, e.g. location registers, home PLMNs or home agents
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/04 Network layer protocols, e.g. mobile IP [Internet Protocol]

Abstract

The invention includes a method and apparatus for providing a distributed forwarding plane for a mobility home agent. The invention provides a method for controlling routing of packets for a mobile node in a network comprising a network domain including a plurality of forwarding elements being controlled by a control element. A method includes computing a route from one of the forwarding elements toward the mobile node and propagating the computed route toward that one of the forwarding elements. The route is computed using location information associated with the mobile node and routing information associated with the network domain.

Claims

1. A method for controlling packet routing for a mobile node in a network comprising a network domain, the network domain comprising a plurality of forwarding elements and a control element, the method comprising:

computing, for one of the forwarding elements, a route from the one of the forwarding elements toward the mobile node, wherein the route entry is computed using location information associated with the mobile node and routing information associated with the network domain; and

propagating the computed route toward the one of the forwarding elements of the network domain.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the location information associated with the mobile node comprises a current location of the mobile node and a pair of endpoints of a tunnel from a mobility home agent to the mobile node.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the location information associated with the mobile node is received from a mobility home agent.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the routing information comprises network topology information associated with the network domain and at least one quality-of-service metric associated with the network domain.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the at least one quality-of-service metric comprises at least one of a path hop metric, a path cost metric, a link cost metric, and a path delay metric.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the forwarding elements and the control element cooperate to function as a router.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the computed route identifies a next-hop node for routing packets intended for the mobile node.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the route is computed without a requirement that a path to the mobile include a mobility home agent associated with the mobile node.

9. An apparatus for controlling packet routing for a mobile node in a network comprising a network domain, the domain comprising a plurality of forwarding elements and a control element, the apparatus comprising:

means for computing, for one of the forwarding elements, a route from the one of the forwarding elements toward the mobile node, wherein the route entry is computed using location information associated with the mobile node and routing information associated with the network domain; and

means for propagating the computed route toward the one of the forwarding elements of the network domain.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the location information associated with the mobile node comprises a current location of the mobile node and a pair of endpoints of a tunnel from a mobility home agent to the mobile node.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the location information associated with the mobile node is received from a mobility home agent.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the routing information comprises network topology information associated with the network domain and at least one quality-of-service metric associated with the network domain.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the at least one quality-of-service metric comprises at least one of a path hop metric, a path cost metric, a link cost metric, and a path delay metric.

14. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the forwarding elements and the control element cooperate to function as a router.

15. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the computed route identifies a next-hop node for routing packets intended for the mobile node.

16. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the route is computed without a requirement that a path to the mobile include a mobility home agent associated with the mobile node.

17. A method for controlling packet routing for a mobile node in a network comprising a network domain including a plurality of forwarding elements being controlled by a control element, comprising:

receiving, at one of the forwarding elements, from the control element, a route entry associated with the mobile node, wherein the route entry comprises a route computed using location information associated with the mobile node and routing information associated with the network domain; and

storing the received route entry associated with the mobile node.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the location information associated with the mobile node comprises a current location of the mobile node and a pair of endpoints of a tunnel from a mobility home agent to the mobile node, and the routing information comprises network topology information associated with the network domain and at least one quality-of-service metric associated with the network domain.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

receiving a packet intended for the mobile node;

identifying the route entry associated with the mobile node, wherein the route entry identifies a next-hop node for routing packets intended for the mobile node; and

forwarding a received packet toward the next-hop node identified by the route entry.

20. A method for routing packets from a host device to a mobile node in a mobile network, comprising:

receiving, from the host device, a packet intended for the mobile node, wherein the packet is received at a packet forwarding element of a network domain controlled by a control element;

determining a next-hop node for the packet by searching a routing/forwarding table for an entry associated with the mobile node; and

propagating the packet toward the next-hop node, wherein the next-hop node is associated with a path that does not include a mobility home agent associated with the mobile node.