Information-centric networking: The evolution from circuits to packets to content

Abstract

Today’s information-centric networks (ICNs) represent a 100-year evolution of communication networks from circuit-switched networks to packet-switched networks to ICNs, sharing common features with both of these earlier network architectures, but having many unique characteristics of its own. We describe and survey ongoing research and identify challenges in the modeling, design and analysis of information-centric networks and protocols. We discuss performance modeling frameworks and challenges for ICNs, with a particular focus on content flowing through a network of caches, drawing analogies and distinctions from past research in both circuit-switched and packet-switched networks. We also survey the challenges and recent research results associated with finding content in a network of caches and managing the content in those caches. The challenges posed by mobility (of both the end users accessing content as well as content itself) are also discussed.