D-Router: Decoupled Content Routers with Remote Content Store
Shuyi Chen, Tian Pan, Chunyang Wu, Guohao Ruan, Jiao Zhang, Tao Huang, Yunjie Liu · 2024
Named Data Networking (NDN) enables efficient content distribution through in-network caching. However, the additional states of network intermediary nodes make NDN forwarding more burdensome, and the unpredictability of cache hits during forwarding leads to uncertain content retrieval latency. To overcome performance bottlenecks at the router's data plane and enhance network determinism, we propose the decoupled content router with remote content store (D-Router). This novel architecture decouples the local content store (CS) from routers and introduces the remote CS device for pooling important content. When Interest packets arrive at a router whose CS is overloaded, we ensure determinism by forwarding them to the remote CS for processing if the requested content is cached there, preventing blocking before the local CS of routers and potential random cache hits along the forwarding path. The dual-path bypass forwarding is supported through the design of routers and a dual-path routing protocol. D-Router is compatible with traditional NDN. Experiments show notable enhancements in data plane performance, including a 30% reduction in round-trip time (RTT), a 25% increase in throughput, improved determinism, and reduced network jitter. Additionally, the decoupling of CS makes it easier for network administrators to deploy network upgrades.