Seamless network migration using the Mockets communications middleware

Abstract

Due to the underlying dynamic nature of wireless and ad-hoc communication environments, applications in tactical networks have to cope with network disconnections and communication channel degradations. Support for network migration, i.e., the ability of a node to seamlessly change its network attachment point without disrupting service sessions, is therefore essential to provide seamless connectivity to warfighters and unmanned autonomous systems. This much needed utility calls for novel middleware to provide mobility functions on top of the traditional communication infrastructure. The goal of this paper is to present the network migration support in Mockets, a communication middleware specifically designed to address the needs of tactical environments by providing handover capabilities transparently and seamlessly to applications. Mockets automatically takes advantage of the best available network, leveraging on predefined, as well as user-provided, policies to perform migration decisions according to the current network status. The performance tests we conducted demonstrate the effectiveness of our implementation and show that Mockets-based network migrations cause an average measured downtime of 17 milliseconds. From a user's perspective, this short interval makes service appear uninterrupted.