Comparison of naming schema in ICN

Abstract

Information-Centric Networking (ICN) treats content as a first-class entity - each content has a unique identity and ICN routers forward traffic based on content identity rather than the locations of the content. This provides benefits like dynamic request routing, caching and mobility support. The choice of naming schema (flat vs. hierarchical) is a fundamental design choice in ICN which determines the functional separation between the network layer and the application layer. With hierarchical names, the network layer is cognizant of the semantics of hierarchical names. Name space management is also part of network layer. ICN architectures using flat names leave these to the application layer. The naming schema affects the performance and scalability of the network in terms of forwarding efficiency, routing table size and name space size. This paper provides both qualitative and quantitative comparison on the two naming schemas using these metrics, noting that they are interdependent. We seek to understand which naming schema would be better for a high-performance, scalable ICN architecture.