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Handover Initiation Comparison in Virtualised SDN-based Flow Mobility Management

This paper presents a framework that integrates Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) to migrate operational aspects of both the network’s Points of Attachment (PoA) and Mobile Nodes (MN) into the cloud. The SDN Controller is used as an enhanced mobility management entity by integrating the capability to instantiate in the cloud a virtual representation of the MNs (vMN). These vMNs not only act as anchors for the handover process of the physical MNs, but also act as proxies for the delivery of context information about the physical MNs wireless surroundings. Such information can be further used by the Controller for optimised handover decisions, resulting in a technology-agnostic flow mobility management mechanism for heterogeneous networks. A video delivery scenario was selected for evaluation in an experimental testbed, where the video is offloaded between wireless networks towards a dual-interfaced MN, considering different handover initiation procedures. With a handover delay of about 60ms, the results shown that virtualising the end-points reduces 67% of the OpenFlow signalling in the physical network, while as a trade-off, the OpenFlow control communication packet size and delay of the MN are incremented.