MultiNet: Connecting to Multiple IEEE Networks Using a Single Radio Ranveer Chandra, Cornell University joint work with: Victor Bahl (MSR) and Pradeep Bahl (Windows Networking)

Motivation A Sample Scenario Company B guy at Company A Ad Hoc Infrastructure Company A employee May not have more than one wireless card! Other applications: Gateway node of a wireless ad hoc network Extending the range of an infrastructure network

Why is it so difficult? Why cant we use two wireless cards? Power, form factor, and what if we want to connect to10 networks How is it so different from Ethernet? Wireless networks require association and authentication to communicate on a network. You can only be connected to one network at a time. OK.. Why not just connect to the network on which you want to send the packet? The association and authentication steps take time. Moreover, even if this time were reduced, a new scheme is required to maintain the state of each network, to simultaneously support connections on multiple networks.

Our Problem Provide a mechanism for users to connect to multiple networks, such that: - The overhead is transparent to the user - The performance is acceptable on each network - The performance does not degrade with the number of switching nodes - It works with commercial wireless cards. A set of suggestions for improving performance without breaking the protocol

The virtual instances: Maintain the network state, such as the IP address, and the SSID of the network Present an always active network interface to the upper layers Our Approach: MultiNet Idea: Virtualize the wireless card, one instance per desired network. Multiplex the card across all the networks Intermediate layer between IP and MAC: Maintains a virtual instance of the wireless card per network Multiplexes across networks, activates one virtual instance at a time. Buffers packets for inactive networks Application is unaware of network switching

Implementation on Windows XP Combination of NDIS IM driver and a user level service Driver o MultiNet Miniport Driver (MMD): Miniport instances. One per network, and IP sees each miniport instance as a different network card. o MultiNet Protocol Driver (MPD): Manages miniports, switches card and buffers packets. Service o Maintains synchronization with other MultiNet nodes o Sends signals to the IM driver using IOCTLs.

MultiNet: Screen Snapshot

Switching: Is it feasible? How long does it take to switch from one network to another? Steps 1,2 ~ 70 ms Delay! ~ 3.8 seconds Reduced by 3.7 seconds 3.87 sec to go from IS to AH network Reduced it to 170 ms by trapping media disconnects Conclusion: Although feasible, switching still takes considerable time. MultiNet should be designed to handle large switching delays, and should perform better when this delay is reduced.

MultiNet: Switching Networks Problem Statement: When does the card switch from one network to another? The solution should: allow users to specify priorities among the connected networks give more time to networks that have seen more traffic not starve networks with low traffic One approach: See traffic over a window of x time slots, and give time proportional to the number of packets seen on the network. Plusses: - better utilization of network time - avoids need for zero configuration Minuses: - Might not work with multihop networks

MultiNet: Buffering Packets Problem Statement: (i)Deliver packets sent by the MultiNet node when the network is not active (ii)Deliver packets sent to the MultiNet node when the node is not active B A MultiNet Node in ad hoc mode Proposed Architecture: Access points store switching state and buffer packets for Multinet Nodes (Analogous to Power Save Mode of IEEE for IS networks) Nodes in ad hoc networks also store the same information for MultiNet nodes in the ad hoc network (Works for a single hop ad hoc network)

MultiNet: Power Consumption Traffic on the IS network (Surge trace) Traffic on the AH network (Real trace) TEST MACHINE How much power is saved using MultiNet?

MultiNet: Power Consumption Without Power Save MultiNet uses much less power than the two radio scheme With Power Save The PSM optimized MultiNet uses much less power.

Future Work Test MultiNet with more than 2 networks Improving performance through tighter coupling with newer drivers and/or MAC changes Better bandwidth sharing with legacy non-MultiNet nodes Improve TCP Performance over MultiNet Make code available for download Contributions of this paper Proposes a new virtualization architecture for wireless cards. Relaxes a physical constraint of the number of wireless cards that can be used by an application. Actually builds and shows the feasibility of such a system! Conclusions