Not Mobile IP

Not Mobile IP (NMIP) is a new IP end-host-based mobility protocol that enables direct and efficient routing between mobile hosts. In NMIP, the mobile host informs its correspondent nodes of a change in its point of attachment, i.e. every time it associates the conversation to a new network address, and relocates existing protocol sessions onto the new point of attachment transparently. Unlike Mobile IP, NMIP does not rely on a central mobility anchor point. NMIP signaling allows a node to transition its connections across multiple network interfaces and/or IP addresses autonomously, without interrupting the active transportlayer conversations. This approach enables transparent mobility while also providing support for multi-homing at the IP layer. The end-to-end architecture of NMIP has the potential to bring a radical simplification in the infrastructure required to sustain mobility over future mobile networks. Less cumbersome mobility procedures can in turn bring important scalability, and efficiency gains for such mobile networks. In this paper, we present and evaluate two NMIP implementations applied to IPv4, which were developed for Linux and for the Plan9 operating systems. Through our analysis and measurements, we highlight how NMIP has the potential to extend the benefits of Mobile IPv6 route optimization and Host Identity Protocol (HIP) in a way that is largely compatible with existing IPv4 equipment and that does not require any explicit mobility support in the network core.