AAA Server IP Pool Policy Assignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
With the growing mobility of communication devices, it becomes difficult and costly to program all network access gateways to enforce special communication policies, such as provisioning, access control, and policy changes, across various network communications.
Innovation Solution
The mechanism leverages the Mobile-IP protocol and AAA server interactions by correlating IP address pools with communication policies, allowing the AAA server to select and assign IP addresses based on the applicable policy for mobile nodes, enabling policy enforcement without custom programming of access gateways.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If communication policies are enforced at network access gateways, then policy enforcement capability is improved, but device complexity and programming cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an AAA server as an intermediary that centralizes policy management and IP address pool assignment. The AAA server acts as a mediator between the network infrastructure and mobile nodes, handling policy enforcement decisions and IP address assignments based on communication policies. This eliminates the need to program complex policy logic at each network access gateway, while maintaining reliable policy enforcement through the centralized AAA server.
2Adaptability or versatility
If IP addresses are assigned dynamically based on communication policies, then policy adaptability is improved, but address assignment complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-organizing IP addresses into multiple pools, where each pool is associated with specific communication policies. The AAA server maintains these pre-defined IP address pools and their corresponding policy associations. When a mobile node requires an IP address, the AAA server quickly assigns an address from the appropriate pre-configured pool based on the node's communication policy requirements, avoiding complex real-time policy analysis and simplifying the assignment process.
Data Source
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AI summary
A method for imposing a communication policy for a mobile node. During Mobile-IP (MIP) registration for the mobile node, when a MIP home agent sends an access request to an authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) server, the AAA server will select a pool of IP addresses corresponding with a communication policy for the mobile node and will direct the home agent to assign an IP address selected from that pool. Thereafter, when the home agent receives a communication to or from the IP address, the home agent may then determine the applicable communication policy by determining the pool from which the IP address was selected, and the home agent may apply that communication policy.