Large scale RINA Experimentation on FIRE +
Mobility management in RINA networks, experimental
evaluation of architectural properties
IEEE WCNC 2018, Barcelona
Eduard Grasa, Fundació i2CAT

THE PROBLEM: SEAMLESS MOBILITY
2
1

Mobility scenario
Large-scale RINA Experimentation on FIRE+ 3
Subnet 1 Subnet 2
Subnet 3
Subnet 6 Subnet 7
Subnet 8
Subnet 6
Subnet 5 Subnet 4
• App names that are stable
• Network @ that reflect location
(change)
App A
App B
Net @
PoA
Net @
PoA Mobile Host (UE)
Server
Access
Points
Access
Points
Access
Points

Mobility scenario
Large-scale RINA Experimentation on FIRE+ 4
Subnet 1 Subnet 2
Subnet 3
Subnet 6 Subnet 7
Subnet 8
Subnet 6
Subnet 5 Subnet 4
• App names that are stable
• Network @ that reflect location
(change)
App A
App B
Net @
PoA
Net @
PoA Mobile Host (UE)
Server
Access
Points
Access
Points
Access
Points

Mobility scenario
Large-scale RINA Experimentation on FIRE+ 5
Subnet 1 Subnet 2
Subnet 3
Subnet 6 Subnet 7
Subnet 8
Subnet 6
Subnet 5 Subnet 4
• App names that are stable
• Network @ that reflect location
(change)
App A
App B
Net @
PoA
Net @
PoA Mobile Host (UE)
Server
Access
Points
Access
Points
Access
Points
• In the Internet
– App name = IP @ + transport port
– Net @ = IP @

Mobility: the problem
• Seamless (application does not notice it) mobility is complicated due to
incomplete naming & addressing:
– Applications need an identifier that is stable when their host moves across networks
– To make routing scale the network addresses need to change as the host attaches to
different networks
• But in the Internet (layer) there is only one identifier: the IP address
– Special protocols to try to make it work: Mobile IP(v4/v6), Proxy Mobile IP (v4/v6), GTP for
cellular (create a huge layer 2 subnet), LISP
– Most of them require tunnels (expensive to setup), all have limitations at the scale they can
provide seamless mobility
6

WHAT ABOUT MOBILITY IN RINA
NETWORKS?
7
2

RINA in 6 sentences
8
• Network architecture resulting from a fundamental theory of computer networking
• Networking is InterProcess Communication (IPC) and only IPC. Unifies networking and
distributed computing: the network is a distributed application that provides IPC
• There is a single type of layer with programmable functions, that repeats as many times as
needed by the network designers (DIF!)
• All layers provide the same service: instances or communication (flows) to two or more
application instances, with certain characteristics (delay, loss, in-order-delivery, etc)
• There are only 3 types of systems: hosts, interior and border routers. No middleboxes (firewalls,
NATs, etc) are needed
• Deploy it over, under and next to current networking technologies
1
2
3
4
5
6

RINA overview
Large-scale RINA Experimentation on FIRE+ 9

Naming & addressing
Application names: Assigned to applications. Location independent. Uniquely identify application within an application
namespace. In general name a set (can have a single member).
Addresses: Location-dependent synonym of an App name. Facilitates locating the app within a certain context (e.g. IPCPs in
a DIF). Its scope is restricted to the DIF.
Port-ids: Identifies one end of a flow within a system (local identifier), only id shared with user.**
Connection endpoint ids (cep-ids): Identify the EFCP instances that are the endpoints of a connection.
QoS-id: Identifies the QoS cube to which the EFCP PDUs belong (PDUs belonging to the same QoS-id receive receive a
consistent treatment through the DIF).
10

Mobility management within a layer
1.2.1 1.2.2 1.2.3 1.2.51.2.4
1.1.1 1.1.2
Subnet1
(1.x.y)
2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.2.52.2.4
2.1.1 2.1.2
Subnet2
(2.x.y)
0.1.0 0.2.0
2.0.11.0.1
11
(1) IPCP in MH
@ 1.0.1
(2) IPCP in MH
@ 1.0.1
@ 2.0.1
(3) IPCP in MH
@ 2.0.1
1.0.1
2.0.1
IPCPs in Base Stations IPCPs in Base Stations
IPCPs in edge routers
IPCPs in core
routers
IPCPs in core
routers

Mobile network with multiple layers
Border
Router
Core DIF
Under DIFs
Border
Router
Under DIFs
Border RouterBase StationMH
Radio DIF
Under
DIFs
District DIF
Metro DIF
Regional DIF
Public Internet DIF
Application-specific DIF
Mobile Infrastructure NetworkCustomer Terminal
…
…
…
Under DIFs
Operator core
• Create as many DIFs as needed depending on density of mobile devices and speed of mobility in
different parts of the mobile network
• Each application can use the DIF that provides enough scope and QoS for its communication
needs -> not restricted to the “top ones”
• All layers have the same structure and protocols, implementations can be highly optimized;
overhead of adding new layers is minimal
12

Example with 4 levels (where needed)
Urban Sub-urban Urban UrbanDense Urban
BS DIF District DIF
LegendMetro DIF Regional DIF
13

Experimental work
• IRATI: RINA open source implementation (https://github.com/IRATI/stack)
– Programmable C/C++ implementation via policies
– For Linux O/S, user space (control, management) and kernel space (data plane)
– Supports RINA over Ethernet (w and w/o VLANs), UDP, TCP AND IP over RINA
• New features contributed by ARCFIRE
– RINA over WiFi: Control attachment, authentication, detachment to WiFi Access Points via
WPA Supplicant
– Local mobility manager: Software running at the mobile host (UE) that decides when to
initiate handovers, and from what DIF to what DIF (host controlled mobility)
• Experiment to validate RINA architectural properties: distributed mobility
management with service continuity across two network providers
Large-scale RINA Experimentation on FIRE+ 14

DMM experiment: physical systems
15
Wifi
(ssid irati)
AP1
Wifi
(ssid pristine)
AP2
Wifi
(ssid arcfire)
AP3
Wifi
(ssid irina)
AP4
Wifi
(ssid rinaisense)
AP5
Wifi
(ssid ocarina)
AP6
LaptopUE
Raspberry Pi 3B
VLAN
10
VLAN
20
VLAN
30
VLAN
40
VLAN
50
VLAN
60
10
20
30
40
50
60
Laptop running Demonstrator
(Blue boxes are QEMU/KVM VMs)
Edge 1
Edge 2
Edge 3
Edge 4
100
110
200
210
Core 1
Core 2
ISP 1
ISP 2
Server 1
Server 2
120
220
300
310
320
VLAN-Aware
Eth. Switch
Mobile net 1
Mobile net 2

DMM experiment: DIFs
Large-scale RINA Experimentation on FIRE+ 16
UE AP 1 Edge 1 Core
ISP1 Server1
Mobile network DIF
Internet DIF
DAF (rina-tgen or rina-echo-time)
Shim DIF WiFi Shim DIF Eth Shim DIF Eth
Shim DIF Eth Shim DIF Eth
UE
A1
A3
A2
E1
C1
E2
Mobile Network DIF
I1
UE
C1 S1
S2I2
Internet DIF
C2

Experiment behaviour: IPCPs at UE
1.1.1
1.1
MAC
1
App
A
ssid
irati
1.1.1
MAC
1
App
A
MAC
2
ssid
irati
ssid
pristine
1.1.1
MAC
2
App
A
ssid
pristine
1.1.1
MAC
2
App
A
MAC
1
ssid
pristine
ssid
arcfire
1.1.1
MAC
1
App
A
ssid
arcfire
1.1.1
App
A
MAC
2
ssid
irina
ssid
arcfire
3.4
MAC
1
1.2.1 1.2.1
3.4
MAC
2
App
A
ssid
irina
…1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
Experiment time
IPCPandapplication
instancesatMH
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7
Large-scale RINA Experimentation on FIRE+ 17

Conclusions
• Mobility can be supported without the need of special protocols or procedures,
just using the tools the network architecture provides:
– Complete naming and addressing scheme
– Routing updates
– Designing the number and size of layers in different parts of the network to accommodate the
load, scale, and rate of change of the mobile terminals
• RINA simplifies design & operation of mobile networks, allowing greater scalability
horizontally (within a layer) and vertically (through multiple layers)
• Future work: Quantify overhead of adding more layers vs. making a single layer larger
in order to accommodate a larger number of mobile hosts.
Large-scale RINA Experimentation on FIRE+ 18