Enabling ICN in the Internet Protocol
Giovanna Carofiglio, Luca Muscariello, Jordan Augé, Michele Papalini, Mauro Sardara, Alberto Compagno · 2019
Information-Centric Networking (ICN) embraces a family of network architectures rethinking Internet communication principles around named-data. After several years of research and the emergence of a few popular proposals, the idea to replace the Internet protocol with data-centric networking remains a subject of debate. ICN advantages have been advocated in the context of 5G networks for the support of highly mobile, multi-access/source and latency-minimal patterns of communications. However, large scale testing and insertion in operational networks are yet to happen, likely due to the lack of a clear incremental deployment strategy. In this paper, we analyze a recent proposal Hybrid-ICN (hICN), an ICN integration inside IP (rather that over/ under/ in place of) that has the ambition to trade-off no ICN architectural principles. By reusing existing packet formats, hICN brings innovation inside the IP stack, requiring minimal software upgrades and guaranteeing transparent interconnection with existing IP networks.