MultiGate6: An IPv6 multihoming gateway using a hybrid approach

Multihoming allows a site/host to connect to multiple Internet Service Providers (ISPs) simultaneously. Network fault tolerance (service resilience), load balancing, and provider independent service can thus be achieved using the multihoming technique. With the benefits of the eased renumbering network mechanism and the large addressing space introduced by IPv6 network, multihoming will become much more popular. In this paper, a hybrid IPv6 multihoming approach, which combines the host-based multihoming approach and the router-based multihoming approach, is proposed. In the proposed design, Router Advertisements defined in Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6) is adopted to handle the multihoming message exchange between the router and the hosts within the IPv6 multihomed network. The corresponding system implementation called ‘MultiGate6’ offers fault tolerance, load balancing, and provider independence services to both site and host levels. Hosts within the multihomed network are able to establish connections through multiple links simultaneously. With the five load balancing policies provided in MultiGate6, congestion of a single link can be prevented and thus bandwidths of links can be utilized more efficiently.