Edge-oriented Collaborative Caching in Information-Centric Networking

Abstract

In-network caching is a key feature of information-centric networking (ICN), in which routers take charge of caching passing contents. Such cache design enables efficient content distribution, but the benefit comes at a non-trivial cost, given adding workload to routers. With the emergence of edge computing, more edge devices with large storages are available, which is a good opportunity for new caching design. To this end, we propose a novel Edge-oriented Collaborative Caching (ECC) in ICN. In ECC, edge devices (such as edge server, micro datacenter, etc.) cache contents while routers only maintain cache indexes which are used to redirect subsequent requests towards the cached content. This enables ECC to work in a lightweight and collaborative fashion. We propose an optimization method to properly create cache indexes, considering both content popularity and cache benefit. Moreover, we also present a failure recovery mechanism to ensure system robustness. Simulation results show when deploying the same total cache capacity, ECC outperforms typical ICN caching schemes in terms of response latency, server load and bandwidth consumption of links.