Context-based wireless mesh networks: a case for network virtualization

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have gained increasing attention as an attractive means to provide connectivity in complement to access as offered by regular Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Such a grass-root technique, however, often suffers from detrimental operating conditions and poor quality. Network virtualization, on the other hand, has been widely advocated as a possibility to overcome what has often been referred to as the ossification of the Internet. Combining the concept of network virtualization with WMN technology, therefore, appears to be promising and desirable. It is envisioned that well managed multiR. Matos ( ) · S. Sargento Instituto de Telecomunicações—Aveiro, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] S. Sargento e-mail: [email protected] K.A. Hummel · A. Hess Department of Distributed and Multimedia Systems, Distributed Systems Group, University of Vienna, Lenaugasse 2/8, 1080 Vienna, Austria K.A. Hummel e-mail: [email protected] A. Hess e-mail: [email protected] K. Tutschku Institute of Distributed and Multimedia Systems, Department of Future Communication, University of Vienna, Universitätsstrasse 10/11, 1090 Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] H. de Meer Chair of Computer Networks and Communications, University of Passau, Innstrasse 43, 94032 Passau, Germany e-mail: [email protected] ple Virtual Networks (VNs) may overcome shortcomings of WMNs on the one hand, and extend the reach of the Internet beyond its current confinement into the realm and control of the user on the other hand. In this paper, we argue for a context-based approach for an effective means to extend multi-VNs from the Internet domain into WMN environments. We describe both mobility and preferences as context models in order to create virtualized WMNs based on these types of context models. As a result, it is envisioned to achieve a comprehensive connectivity coverage, accompanied by high assurance in network quality. We further present a distributed solution to manage multi-VNs, and a mobility-aware context use case to demonstrate the usefulness of our approach.