Caching scheme for information‐centric networks with balanced content distribution

Abstract

SummaryInformation‐centric network (ICN) emphasizes on content retrieval without much bothering about the location of its actual producer. This novel networking paradigm makes content retrieval faster and less expensive by shifting data provisioning into content holder rather than content owner. Caching is the feature of ICN that makes content serving possible from any intermediate device. An efficient caching is one of the primary requirements for effective deployment of ICN. In this paper, a caching approach with balanced content distribution among network devices is proposed. The selection of contents to be cached is determined through universal and computed using Zipf's law. The dynamic change in popularity of contents is also considered to take make caching decisions. For balancing the cached content across the network, every router keeps track of its neighbor's cache status. Three parameters, the proportionate distance of the router from the client (pd), the router congestion (rc), and the cache status (cs), are contemplated to select a router for caching contents. The new caching approach is evaluated in the simulated environment using ndnSIM‐2.0. Three state‐of‐the‐art approaches, Leave Copy Everywhere (LCE), centrality measures‐based algorithm (CMBA), and a probability‐based caching (probCache), are considered for comparison. The proposed method of caching shows the better performance compared to the other three protocols used in the comparison.