| Abstract | Efficient mobility management is one of the most important challenges in mobile networks. Since roaming between wireless cells can cause long handoff latency and high packet loss, it can result in poor quality of services for delay-sensitive applications and for applications requiring reliable transmission. In this dissertation, we propose a new seamless micro-mobility management framework for Micro Mobile MPLS (called MiM-MPLS) to overcome the packet loss problem while maintaining low handoff latency. To study and investigate MiM-MPLS, the simulator corresponding to the proposed mechanism is designed and implemented. The architecture of the simulator is described. Additionally, the simulator validation is performed by comparing various event times between simulation and analysis. The effects of the buffering mechanism to prevent packet loss are investigated using the developed simulator. In this case, CBR and VoIP traffic over UDP are considered. The simulation results show that the packet loss could be prevented provided that the buffering mechanism is initiated before the handoff. However, there is a required buffer space at the LFA. Additionally, when the MN increases its speed, the required buffer size is smaller. Moreover, the performance analysis and evaluation is performed in terms of the signaling cost of registration updates, handoff latency, packet loss, buffer size requirement, and delay jitter using the timing diagram as a common analytical framework. In this case, CBR traffic over UDP is considered. We compare MiM-MPLS with Mobile IP (Perkins, 2002), Mobile MPLS (Ren et aI., 2001), and FH-Micro Mobile MPLS (Langar et aI., 2006 and 2008). The results show that MiM-MPLS provides the best handoff performance (i.e., the lowest signaling cost of registration updates, handoff latency, and delay jitter) at a cost of some buffer space. We further combine the proposed mechanism with the framework based on the forwarding chain concept, yielding the result called MiM-MFC-MPLS. Following the same performance analysis and evaluation as those in MiM-MPLS, the results show that MiM-MFC-MPLS outperforms MFC-Micro Mobile MPLS with larger required buffer space. Thus, the proposed mechanisms not only provide the seamless mobility but also efficiently support applications requiring reliable transmission. |