Deliverables New architecture for mobile operators based on IPv6 The Moby Dick architecture successfully integrated Mobility, QoS and AAA towards an IP dominated mobile Internet platform. The key result of the project is that Mobile IPv6 with the slight extensions as proposed in Moby Dick is able to provide QoA-aware and AAA-supported seamless mobility on heterogeneous network architecture. The Moby Dick architecture clearly showed that the Internet can become a mobile network which goes beyond the support for nomadic use only, as currently supported by WLAN/Mobile IP technologies. Inter-technology handover can be supported easily and though the profile concept of Moby Dick users can be de-coupled from end systems and user mobility concepts can be introduced into such a network without severe problems. A further result is that seamless mobility between administrative domains is still an open issue and was not the key focus of Moby Dick for the following reason: Moby Dick provides a network architecture, which provides technical solutions to technical problems. The inter-domain scenario is rather an economical and contractual problem than a technical problem. Here the relation and in turn the business models describing the relationship between two operators are the more critical path and so, this topic is out of the scope of Moby Dick. Further open issues so far are, if the mobile operators really allow the Internet to become mobile and seamlessly available since the Internet lacks of a business model and so there exists no concept how to really earn money. So the Moby Dick consortium can handover this successor-problem to the economists in order to get feedback about the level of openness this infrastructure can stand in order to generate the revenue required. A further, very important aspect is the missing concept describing the relationship between the network operator and a third party operator creating a service to be consumed by the user. This relationship could bring new requirements to the AAA part of the Moby Dick architecture which has nod been considered so far. More information on the Moby Dick project can be found at: http://www.ist-mobydick.org/ Mobility architecture in a future IP network Fast hand-over prototype: A significant result of the project was the implementation of fast handover in the mobility and integrated prototypes towards seamless mobility. Using just MIPv6, there is quite some delay when the access point (access router) is changed, in the range of up to 10 seconds. This could be significantly reduced using Fast Handover, which uses the make-before-break approach compared to break-before-make of plain MIPv6. Before fast handover was implemented, Fast Handover was compared to using just Mobile IPv6, and it could be shown that it we could expect significant improvements. The following ns-2 simulations done in the project demonstrates the gains we get via Fast Handover regarding latency. Further simulations showed that data loss could also almost be eliminated using Fast Handover. These simulation results led to Moby Dick using this technology for seamless handovers. The prototype confirmed our expectations regarding seamlessness. In addition, it turned out that Fast Handover could nicely be integrated with AAA and QoS to carry context data (user identity, QoS) from the old Access Router to the new Access Router, thus supporting context transfer. Though not yet officially taken up, such results have been discussed at IETF in the Seamoby group, and it such combinations will hopefully be taken up in future. The results here have resulted in a major step of our understanding: We may use Fast Handover to achieve the kind of functions in a pure IP-based environments regarding AAA and QoS that we so far only had in traditional circuit-switched networks. Driver and Wireless-LAN-cards: They are not optimised for fast hand-over. Future wireless networks will need to use the wireless LAN (802.11b) infrastructure mode to provide the kind of services that Moby Dick has prototyped. However, the available wireless LAN cards do not allow fast discovery (in infrastructure mode) of new access points while connected. In addition, the layer-2 latency was too high. For these reasons, the ad-hoc mode was chosen for the purposes of the project. The WLAN Linux driver was modified and enhanced to simulate the infrastructure mode. This solution allows the mobile terminal to receive and send data via the access point and, in the meanwhile, to process beacons advertised by other access points. The decision for handovers is based on the signal strength of the received router advertisement. It was the common understanding in the project, that the ad hoc mode is a temporary solution, and that future solutions would use the infrastructure mode provided the issues mentioned above, such as layer-2 latency, as solved by the WLAN card manufacturers. It is expected that upcoming solutions, such as offered by Moby Dick, will motivate WLAN vendors to tackle these problems, which may not be relevant for the current uses of the cards. The solution could lie both in generally improving the functionality and performance of the cards, or by providing specialised WLAN cards for such purposes. MTNM: The MTNM is a prototype of what could be implemented in future multimode terminals (phones or PDAs). It handles user preferences and interactions as well as control access technologies, including handover management. It is also used to synchronise other functionalities on the terminal. The user interface part, the NCP, provides a set of information elements and interactions that should be implemented in a "ready to market" device. It becomes possible for the user to register on the network and to define preferences in terms of Access Technology to use and handover management strategy. It also provides feedback on the networking conditions (signal levels for instance) and on the ability to trigger a handover manually if the user wants to choose the network to use. The MTNM itself is a prototype of the kind of middleware that could be embedded in a commercial terminal. It controls the network drivers for each access technology, implements a handover algorithm to take decisions on when to perform the handover (based on access technology conditions, but also on user preferences, and Quality of Service feedbacks). It interacts with all other entities on the mobile terminal (AAA registration software, paging software, in the case of Moby Dick) to synchronise all of them. More information on the Moby Dick project can be found at: http://www.ist-mobydick.org/ IP-paging architecture Within the framework of the IST Moby Dick project, a concept for IP-based paging support has been specified, implemented and tested. Based on some functional and non-functional requirements, the paging architecture components as well as protocol messages and parameters have been specified in consideration of the design goals. As a result, an IP paging concept has been specified, which integrates modularly with the Mobile-IPv6 platform without being dependent on it. The concept's framework has been discussed within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF). Based on the architecture and protocol concept, protocol message parameters have been specified to allow the integration and operation with the Moby Dick platform and associated access technologies (IEEE802.3, IEEE802.11 and TD-CDMA). A prototype of the paging components has been implemented, which is based on a dedicated Paging Agent node, paging attendant modules, which are to be integrated with individual Access Routers, and a paging module for the mobile terminal, which interfaces efficiently to the MTNM-module to synchronise with other functions (e.g. registration) and to retrieve access related information. Since one of the design goals was to integrate the paging architecture modularly without the need to change existing architecture and protocol components, but to make use of existing functions for the integration, the specification included the use of the Mobile-IPv6 protocol's alternate care-of-address (alt-CoA) registration. This registration support is part of the Mobile-IPv6 protocol specification, but was not available in the protocol implementation used in the Moby Dick project (implementation of Helsinki University of Technology). Hence, some parts of the Open Source Mobile-IPv6 implementation have been extended to implement the alt-CoA registration support. One function of the concept's paging attendants is to allow mapping of the technology independent paging protocol, which is used between the Paging Agent node and individual paging attendants, to technology specific paging on the access links served by individual Access Routers. Since the focus of paging related activities in Moby Dick was on the design of the framework and the common core protocol and less on technology specific paging functions and optimisation, support for integration of the Moby Dick access technologies has been specified for support on IP layer. Mapping to optimised technology specific dormant mode and paging support on access technologies' link-layer is allowed by the concept but is future work. However, efficient mapping and addressing on IP layer has been specified and implemented for IEEE802.3, IEEE802.11 and TD-CDMA. Since TD-CDMA support is integrated with a Radio Gateway, which is physically separated from the respective IP-subnet's associated Access Router, operation between the paging attendant and the Radio Gateway has been specified in a generic way without introducing proprietary protocol messages for control and management purposes. This allows smooth migration to a collocated architecture in the future, which has the Access Router and the TD-CDMA Radio Gateway functions integrated in one physical node representing a TD-CDMA Access Router. More information on the Moby Dick project can be found at: http://www.ist-mobydick.org/ A4C architecture Metering to Accounting Adaptation: USTUTT developed an interface, which enables an inter-working between the enhanced, IPv6-capable RTFM-based meter to the Diameter Attendant for the final charging purpose. This includes a metering session concept, which has been implemented based on the used meter. Finally, extensive tests have been undertaken proving the overall concept for the message flow from the Meter to the charging database. Charging: The charging process as developed by ETHZ calculates the price for a given service consumption based on accounting data and the SLA with all key tariff definitions. Within Moby Dick, charging supports the post paid business case and it is session-based. Within each session a user can employ services with different QoS and DSCPs and is able to roam in various domains. The tariff can be based on QoS, volume, session duration, and the domain where the service was consumed. The charging component features a convenient web interface - one for the operators and one for each customer. Users are able to login and view their accumulated charges after the provider has performed the charging process for a pre-defined period, such as a day, a month, or a week. The charges are presented in an aggregated and session-based manner, where all other details are hidden. Upon request, customers can view all accounted for charging details of each session, e.g., the consumed volume or the delivered QoS. The web interface for operators offers a login for several administration services, which customers cannot access. These include amongst others the start of the charging process for customers and sessions as well as the view of detailed customer information and their tariff definitions. Further research on prepaid and content-based charging will be addressed in the Daidalos project. Auditing: Within Moby Dick the concept of SLA (Service Level Agreement) Compliance Auditing has been developed by ETHZ. This concept goes beyond the proposed extension of the AAAC's server tasks of simply logging capabilities. It allows a provider to determine whether the agreed service level guarantees are being held or violated. This approach and task will have a positive impact in the future of managing SLAs among providers as well as between providers and customers. The service level guarantees of interest, which have been defined and implemented within Moby Dick, include "Entity Availability Guarantee", "Guarantee of Successful Registration", and "Service Request". In order to transfer the audit trails generated by different and remote loggers to a centralised auditing instance, mainly a provider's or a third party's location, a logging framework has been implemented by ETHZ. Further research on SLA Compliance Auditing will be further carried out by ETHZ and partners within the Daidalos Project. Profile Decoupling of an User from the Device: Moby Dick followed the key concept of user mobility. This means in contrary to the widely deployed terminal mobility a user and the users privileges and rights, which are generally reflected in a contract between user and operator, are not directly bound to a device or a SIM card inside a device as known in the 2G area. In Moby Dick any user can use any device and via a centralised profile management each user gets his individual access rights. This rights are described in the user profile and are communicated to the appropriate policy points which need the information for the service provisioning. Such a Profile concept has been designed and implemented. The AAA/Diameter framework of Moby Dick then transfers required elements of this profile to the appropriate network nodes. This implies the exchange of information also between administrative domains. Conceptually the user rights could change from administrative domain to administrative domain, however the current implementation does assume that the profile description is valid for all administrative domains involved. DIAMETER Open Source Implementation: The upcoming standard DIAMETER has been used for the support of AAAC functionality in this project. The use of DIAMETER in the project consolidates DIAMETER's position as the candidate for a future standard. Further, DIAMETER application for Mobile IPv6 was developed. This will be used as basis for further contributions to IETF drafts and RFC. A fully functional DAIMETER based AAA infrastructure was designed and implemented in this project. The implementation is called DISC (DIAMETER Server Client). The following parts of the DIAMETER implementation will be released as open source: - Server functionality including accounting, - Diameter base protocol, - Diameter application for MIPv6. More information on the Moby Dick project can be found at: http://www.ist-mobydick.org/ Exploitable results A4C A4C (Authentication, Authorization, Accounting, Auditing, and Charging) determines a new and integrated approach for an extended IRFT AAAArch architecture. It has been applied to mobile services and systems (Daidalos, Daidalos II projects) and to grid services (Akogrimo project). Searching for OpenAIRE data... There was an error trying to search data from OpenAIRE No results available
