Mobility management for the information centric future internet.

Summary Today's Internet has gone through a series of evolutionary changes in the last forty or fifty years. It was designed as a network with fixed nodes. At first, the communication model of the Internet was based on the telephone network (considered 1st Generation Internet). Later it was updated as a client-server model where the communication systems exchange data over dedicated links. This 2nd generation Internet, over the years, has been challenged by many problems such as network congestion, path failure, DOS attacks, mobility management for wireless networks, etc. Internet users are always looking for information, regardless of the location (node or server) where it is located or stored. This approach is the basis of an architecture where information is considered the primary unit. These networks, in general, are called as Network of Information (NetInf), where the information takes a centered position replacing the node-centric approach as in the Internet today. The problems faced by the Internet today, mentioned above, can be addressed with a unifying approach by putting information at the center of the network architecture. On a global scale, this network architecture design is called the Future Information Centric Internet. In parallel, the use of mobile Internet has been increased during the last decade. There were about 1.2 billion mobile broad band subscriptions for 2.4 billion Internet users in 2011. Due to increased spectral efficiency and ubiquitous availability of cellular connectivity, mobility and seamless connectivity is now considered a commodity in everyday life. Nevertheless, in case of the Internet, IP-based mobility solutions cannot catch up in performance with the rapid evolution of cellular networks. Therefore, one of the main goals for the future Internet is to design mobility management systems that overcome the problems in wireless networks such as handover and location management, multihoming, security, etc. In this thesis, we have proposed a solution for mobility management in wireless networks in the context of Information Centric Networking (ICN) in general and in the context of NetInf in particular. NetInf is a Future Internet architecture based on the ICN concept. We propose a mobile node called NetInf Mobile Node (NetInf MN). The architecture of this node is compatible with the TCP/TP based Internet architecture. This architecture design works in conjunction with the Central Control Unit (CCU) to improve handover performance in wireless networks. The Virtual Node Layer (VNL) algorithm explains how the different modules of NetInf MN and CCU units work together. The mathematical model based on Game Theory and Reinforcement Learning (CODIPAS-RL) shows how handover and data relaying are handled in wireless networks. Simulation results show that the proposed model achieves both Nash and Stackelberg equilibria while the CODIPAS-RL scheme reaches a global optimum. Finally, as an example of use case of the NetInf architecture, we propose the NetInf Email Service which does not require dedicated servers and ports unlike the existing email service. The use of asymmetric keys such as user ID is the unique feature proposed for this service. The NetInf Email service architecture presented, explains how different architectural elements work together. We discuss the different challenges and requirements for this service. The prototype developed for NetInf will be used for the implementation of this service.