The MobilityFirst project is funded by the National Science Foundation's Future Internet Architecture (FIA) program started in Sept 2010.  The FIA program is aimed at design and validation of comprehensive new architectures for the next-generation Internet.  This is a three-year project (2010-13) with scope including network design, performance evaluation, large-scale prototyping and end-user application trials.

Project Summary

The MobilityFirst project is founded on the premise that the Internet is approaching an historic inflection point, with mobile platforms and applications poised to replace the fixed-host/server model that has dominated the Internet since its inception. This predictable, yet fundamental, shift presents a unique opportunity to design a next generation Internet in which mobile devices, and applications, and the consequent changes in service, trustworthiness, and management are primary drivers of a new architecture. The major design goals of our proposed architecture are: mobility as the norm with dynamic host and network mobility at scale; robustness with respect to intrinsic properties of wireless medium; trustworthiness in the form of enhanced security and privacy for both mobile networks and wired infrastructure; usability features such as support for context-aware pervasive mobile services, evolvable network services, manageability and economic viability. The design is also informed by technology factors such as radio spectrum scarcity, wired bandwidth abundance, continuing Moore’s law improvements to computing, and energy constraints in mobile and sensor devices.

The key components of the MobilityFirst network architecture are: (1) separation of naming and addressing, implemented via a fast global dynamic name resolution service; (2) self-certifying public key network addresses to support strong authentication and security; (3) generalized delay-tolerant routing with in-network storage for packets in transit; (4) flat-label internetwork routing with public key addresses; (5) hop-by-hop transport protocols operating over path segments rather than an end-end path; (6) a separate network management plane that provides enhanced visibility; (7) optional privacy features for user and location data; and (8) an integrated computing and storage layer at routers to support programmability and evolution of enhanced network services. The architecture as a whole has been designed to be implementable with reasonable complexity, and to offer good scalability and performance. Although the proposed design has its “sweet spot” in large-scale mobile networking, its innovations and benefits will be enjoyed within the wired core as well, via enhanced security and robustness.

This project is a collaborative effort involving Rutgers, UMass, MIT, Duke, U Michigan, UNC, U Wisconsin, and U Nebraska with interaction with several industrial research partners. The project is organized into eight work packages; five focused tasks (WP1: Naming/Routing; WP2: Security; WP3: Net Management; WP4: Pervasive/Mobile; WP5: Economics) and three cross-cutting tasks (WP6: Architecture; WP7: Evaluation; and WP8: Prototyping). The project plan includes a progression of experimental prototypes: (i) individual validations of key protocol components such as name service, GDTN routing and flat-label interdomain routing; (ii) small-scale lab prototype of the architecture for controlled experiments; and (iii) Multi-site, medium-scale system prototype (using GENI infrastructure) for inter-networking experiments and proof-of-concept demonstrations. The project will conclude with a comprehensive validation and evaluation of the performance and usability of the architecture using both controlled experiments and application trials with real-world end-users.