Naval Research Laboratory Dynamic Backbone Subnets 802.11 ESS Mesh Overview & Issues James P. Hauser Naval Research Laboratory hauser@itd.nrl.navy.mil Dennis J. Baker Dynamic Backbone Subnets d.baker@mchsi.com
Meshing with the 802 Architecture ANSI/IEEE Std 802.11, 1999 Edition 5.1.1.4 Interaction with other IEEE 802 layers IEEE 802.11 is required to appear to higher layers [logical link control (LLC)] as a current style IEEE 802 LAN. This requires that the IEEE 802.11 network handle station mobility within the MAC sublayer. To meet reliability assumptions (that LLC makes about lower layers), it is necessary for IEEE 802.11 to incorporate functionality that is untraditional for MAC sublayers.
Requirements Necessary for ESS Mesh to Appear as a IEEE 802 LAN All nodes in the LAN appear to be one hop away from the vantage point of a higher layer protocol. Any pair of nodes within the LAN may communicate with each other. Every node may broadcast to all other nodes in the LAN. In a hierarchical topology, such as an 802.11 ESS, station mobility must be managed, i.e., as the station migrates from one BSS to another.
Mobility Issues Routing is the central issue in a flat topology. In a hierarchical topology, e.g., an 802.11 ESS, STA mobility is also an issue. Mobility is facilitated by the following: Topologically correct address, e.g., (Access Point ID + Association ID) Use BSSID as an Access Point ID? Use short, local, pseudonym for Access Point ID (e.g., 0,1,2,…)? Auto assignment of local, mesh-unique Access Point IDs Address resolution protocol(s) to map from the topologically correct address to the MAC address Proactive / Reactive ?
L2.5 Routing Broadcast / Multicast / Unicast Proactive / Reactive Convergence Ability of a protocol to form valid routes Affected by link dynamics Impacts routes Impacts operation of routing algorithm itself Link Metrics Capacity, Latency, Hop Count, Power Consumption, … Link State Advertisement (LSA) Protocol
“Broadcast” Types ESS-Wide (All 1’s) Broadcast Mesh-Wide (All APs) Broadcast Non-Relayed (1 hop) Broadcast Does an Ethernet address exist for this purpose? Multicast Buffering Issue Multicast buffering for traffic destined for STAs in power-save mode, but NOT for multicast traffic destined for APs
Control Approaches Centralized Distributed
Synchronization Beacon Coordination? Support for synchronous protocols? e.g., 11-03/266r1 QoS Mesh scheduled media access?
AP-to-AP 802.11 Message Format Design Decisions Use ‘Reserved’ message type/subtype? Use Beacon Element(s) for management frames? Use existing 802.11 WDS message formats? Encapsulation within Mesh frames? E.g., Subnet headers specified in 11-03/266r1 Frame sequence numbers that have mesh-wide scope?