Performance Evaluation of In-Network Caching: A Core Functionality of Information Centric Networking

Abstract

Internet architecture was designed to enable end- to-end communication between two hosts, currently internet is eminently being used for distribution and fetching of huge chunk of data, largely video data for which it was not designed. This fundamental mismatch has severe impacts on overall performance of the network. Information Centric Networking (ICN)has come out as a possible solution to overcome the current problems of TCP/IP architecture. The goal of ICN is to cater a network service that is more suited to today's demand and is resilient to disruptions and failures. In-Network Caching is one among the core functionalities of ICN. In ICN, each node is equipped with a built-in cache so that user request for data gets satisfied at the intermediate node itself rather than going all the way to end host each time. Due to in- network caching there will be more efficient use of network bandwidth, less load on server and better response time for user. ICN improves the overall performance of the internet. This paper discusses design features of ICN architecture, its main components and advantages of ICN in general. Purpose of our paper is to highlight importance of in-network caching in ICN, list the advantages and its impact on relevant elements in performance metrics. Our simulation results of in-network caching in ICN show reduction in the network response delay, hop count and increased throughput in comparison to the current TCP/IP architecture. The paper also lists out issues related to In-network caching, giving a direction to the future work.