Information-Centric Networking Approaches Research Articles

FellowMe Cache: Fog Computing approach to enhance (QoE) in Internet of Vehicles

Among metrics that highly affect video quality and quality of experience (QoE), we can cite the delay and cost transmission caused by mobile network overhead. Moreover, Information centric networking (ICN) is a new architecture that is proposed as a technique that offers very high throughput rates and very low latency, especially in QoE sensitive applications such as multimedia content delivery for the future communication networks. Indeed, unused memory in user equipment can be used to cache contents and afford it to the other nearby users on demand. This caching method is considered as one of the most promising solutions to enhance the QoE of users. On the other hand, one of the major research goals is to improve caching nodes decision based on nodes’ characteristics. In this paper, we propose a new programmable architecture named FollowMeCache based on Software Defined Network (SDN), ICN approaches and Fog Computing for cache node selection using the Connected Dominating Sets (CDS) in order to reduce the download delay and cost for the users’ requested video. In fact, we define cache node selection algorithm based on Influence factor to elect the appropriate nodes from the CDS set to build the cache. This metric takes into consideration the connectivity degree, Zone of Interest (ZI), node capacity, user preference and its location. In order to evaluate the proposed solution, we define a smart event use case. The performance evaluation is conducted by using network simulator and the obtained results show that our approach can give significant gain in terms of network throughput and the transmission delay.

Design and implementation of efficient control for incoming inter-domain traffic with Information-Centric Networking

Efficient and accurate control of incoming inter-domain traffic is critically important for Autonomous Systems (ASes). However, it is extremely difficult for two neighboring ASes to efficiently control incoming traffic over multiple inter-domain links in the current Internet. By contrast, Information-Centric Networking (ICN) is a novel network paradigm and has many inherent features, which can support finer granularity of routing policies and provide more opportunities to realize Traffic Engineering (TE). In this paper, we explore the potentials of ICN in controlling incoming inter-domain traffic between neighboring ASes who have multiple inter-domain links. We present a heuristic algorithm and extend it with different information on network status and content metadata. We implement them in a real prototype and compare them with a classic inter-domain TE approach in the current Internet (i.e., the IP-prefixes negotiation approach, IPN) in three scenarios. Three interesting conclusions are drawn from extensive experiments on the prototype. First, ICN makes it easier to control inter-domain traffic compared with IPN. In particular, ICN approaches have shorter negotiation delay and lower negotiation overhead. Second, content metadata (e.g., content size) in ICN is quite beneficial to control traffic since it can help estimate traffic volumes so as to achieve more accurate control of traffic. Third, ICN can efficiently handle the bursty traffic and link failures compared with IPN.

Hierarchical and Flat-Based Hybrid Naming Scheme in Content-Centric Networks of Things

Information-centric networking (ICN) approaches have been considered as an alternative approach to TCP/IP. Contrary to the traditional IP, the ICN treats content as a first-class citizen of the entire network, where names are given through different naming schemes to contents and are used during the retrieval. Among ICN approaches, content centric networking (CCN) is one of the key protocols being explored for Internet of Things (IoT), names the contents using hierarchical naming. Moreover, CCN follows pull-based strategy and exhibits the communication loop problem because of its broadcasting mode. However, IoT requires both pull and push modes of communication with scalable and secured content names in terms of integrity. In this paper, we propose a hybrid naming scheme that names contents using hierarchical and flat components to support both push and pull communication and to provide both scalability and security, respectively. We consider an IoT-based smart campus scenario and introduce two transmission modes: 1) unicast mode and 2) broadcast mode to address loop problem associated with CCN. Simulation results demonstrate that proposed scheme significantly improves the rate of interest transmissions, number of covered hops, name aggregation, and reliability along with addressing the loop problem.

A Domain-Specific Comparison of Information-Centric Networking Architectures for Connected Vehicles

The networking of components, machines, and everyday objects is progressing rapidly. Such development also affects the automotive industry. In the future, vehicles will be connected with other vehicles, infrastructure components or cloud servers. This raises the question, whether the current host-centric communication model of today’s networks is ready for networking billions of new devices. In recent years, information-centric networking (ICN) has been identified as a potential paradigm to solve the issues set by connected vehicles. This paper provides a detailed examination of the different available ICN approaches regarding the specific requirements of connected vehicles. While some first publications showed the principal applicability of particular ICN architectures in vehicular ad-hoc networks, a detailed comparison has not been conducted yet. This paper closes the gap by discussing and comparing the available ICN architectures in an automotive context and identifies open research questions in ICN.

Naming and name resolution in the future internet: Introducing the NovaGenesis approach

Naming and name resolution have fundamental roles in the current and future Internet architectures. In the contemporary Internet, many limitations and problems on this area are longtime well-known, including the limited number of namespaces, the overloaded semantics of IP addresses and domain names, the use of network layer names at higher-levels of the architecture, and the limited name resolution capabilities of DNS. More recently, information-centric networking (ICN) and ID/Locator splitting have emerged as important approaches for rethinking the role of naming on the Internet. In addition, flat name schemes and innovative name resolution service (NRS) are being proposed to improve content distribution efficiency and provenance. In this paper, we are proposing a novel, hierarchical, distributed, name resolution and network caching service to support any combination of flat or hierarchical, natural language or self-verified naming. We provide a scientific contribution to the problem of structuring and resolving names composed of bindings among any kind of names in hierarchical autonomous domains. Our differentiated ICN approach is the core of a future Internet architecture called NovaGenesis. We evaluate and compare the performance of our approach for hierarchical name resolution services, specially in terms of how much servers are used (utilization). Results suggest that our proposal can be adopted as an alternative to the current Internet or other ICN approaches, like multi-level distributed hash tables. We report a reduction on name resolution services utilization at more than one level of authoritative domains’ hierarchy. When the probability of a queried domain name is in the cache of a resolver is equal to 0.547 (the typical value today), NovaGenesis root and second level name resolution servers have experimented less than half of the current DNS servers utilization. Finally, we have experimentally evaluated the performance of our proposal in a local domain using a C++ Linux implementation and Docker™ containers, analyzing how the number of name records and hash table nodes impact on name resolution lookup times.

From content delivery today to information centric networking

Today, content delivery is a heterogeneous ecosystem composed by various independent infrastructures. The ever increasing growth of Internet traffic has encouraged the proliferation of different architectures to serve content provider needs and user demand. Despite the differences among the technology, their low level implementation can be characterized in a few fundamental building blocks: network storage, request routing, and data transfer. Existing solutions are inefficient because they try to build an information centric service model over a network infrastructure which was designed to support host-to-host communications. The Information-Centric Networking (ICN) paradigm has been proposed as a possible solution to this mismatch. ICN integrates content delivery as a native network feature. The rationale is to architect a network that automatically interprets, processes, and delivers content (information) independently of its location. This paper makes the following contributions: (1) it identifies a set of building blocks for content delivery, (2) it surveys the most popular approaches to realize the above building blocks, (3) it compares content delivery solutions relying on the current Internet infrastructure with novel ICN approaches.

Exploring the Future of Experiencing (in) the Internet: Boosting Adoption of Information-Centric Networking

The Internet’s origin is that of providing basic communication to the many people using it for services like voice, video and basic access to important information. This view of the Internet has found entry in its most central aspect of the architecture, the role of endpoints in a communication. The mental model of two entities conversing for a certain purpose is directly reflected in the communication that underlies IP and its higher layer protocols TCP and HTTP: two endpoints connect and retrieve appropriate information for the purpose of the communication. In the current Internet, there increasingly exist challenges regarding the control over the information transmitted, as well as the efficiency of the overall experience delivery. For instance, the “right to be forgotten”, proposed by the European Commission, aims at solving potential problems about data protection regulation. This proposal underlines the difficulty that Internet users face, since they are not always able to apply policies about their published personal data for cases in which the data is used within different contexts. This aspect of changing contexts of use, however, is crucial when assembling experiences at runtime, i.e., when pulling information as needed for the sake of a larger experience. This aspect of pulling information together for delivering an experience to an end user often reveals efficiency as a major challenge, too. Given that current IP-based networks are agnostic to the information transmitted, there are limits to the support for efficient content-delivery and personalized information-distribution despite attempts of the wider industry to constantly improve on these aspects through, for instance, dedicated content delivery network (CDN) technologies.Several research approaches such as NDN, PURSUIT, have been put forward to address these challenges by improving the current Internet’s underlying architecture for efficient information-dissemination. Solutions in the space of Information-Centric Networking (ICN) suggest that moving from an end-host-based Internet to an information-centric one could bring inherent advantages to efficiency and security in content delivery. Furthermore, such move to a new internetworking architecture is seen as enabling new use cases for future services in order to deliver highly distributed computational tasks, such as needed for the emerging multimedia experiences that we all come to enjoy. However, there are questions and doubts inevitably arising concerning the ICN deployment, which suggests such radical change in current Internet architecture. According to, initial scenarios for partial deployment are necessary for leading to a widespread adoption of new architectures. In this paper, we introduce a business scenario for an efficient, dynamic content-delivery system with improved Quality of Service (QoS) for its end users, called “Story Delivery Network” (SDN). We see this scenario as having the potential for creating an initial force that could drive the deployment of ICN as well as revealing new insight into the overall design of ICN solutions. In order to provide insight into the potential of this scenario, we identify the key stakeholders, the individual ‘tussles’ between them, as well as the potential causal dependencies on other conflicts. Such analysis will provide a useful understanding of the wider socioeconomic environment for such scenario. In particular, we intend to capture potential socioeconomic scenarios, by utilizing system dynamics modeling. Here, the various aspects affecting the efficiency of information dissemination and content delivery, as well as the caching of different content at different levels (i.e., core, access ISP, edge) will provide a wide range of interesting issues relating to user mobility, quality of experience, local policies etc., within the socioeconomic context. With this analysis, the paper aims at increasing our understanding concerning the viability of ICN approaches, extending the socioeconomic evaluation.