Information-centric networking


Information-centric networking is an approach to evolve the Internet infrastructure away from a host-centric paradigm, based on perpetual connectivity and the end-to-end principle, to a network architecture in which the focal point is identified information. In this paradigm, connectivity may well be intermittent, end-host and in-network storage can be capitalized upon transparently, as bits in the network and on data storage devices have exactly the same value, mobility and multi access are the norm and anycast, multicast, and broadcast are natively supported. Data becomes independent from location, application, storage, and means of transportation, enabling in-network caching and replication. The expected benefits are improved efficiency, better scalability with respect to information/bandwidth demand and better robustness in challenging communication scenarios.. In Information-centric networking the cache is a network level solution, and it has rapidly changing cache states, higher request arrival rates and smaller cache sizes. In particular, information-centric networking caching policies should be fast and lightweight.

Research Projects

US based

The Internet Research Task Force is sponsoring a research group on which serves as a forum for the exchange and analysis of ICN research ideas and proposals. Current and future work items and outputs are managed on the .

Conferences, Workshops and Seminars

There are several venues for ongoing discussions about ICN. Dagstuhl seminars have taken place in , , and .
Prior to 2014, ICN workshops were held at ACM’s SIGCOMM conferences .
Starting in Sept. 2014, ACM created a dedicated annual conference on ICN.
Also relevant are the Workshops on Emerging Design Choices in Name-Oriented Networking held at the IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications in and .