Information-Centric Networking :

The Evolution From Circuits to

Packets to Content
02-04-2014

Jim Kurose

School of Computer Science, University of Massachusetts,

Amherst, MA 01003, United States
 Contents
1. Introduction
1. Circuit Switching
2. Packet Switching
3. Information Centric Networks
2. Modeling Network of Caches
3. Analyzing Network of Caches
4. Locating Content and Caching Content
5. Fixed-point approximation method
6. Conclusion
7. References
 Introduction
• Erlang introduced the circuit-switched
telephone network.
• Fifty Years later, packet-switched networks
introduced by Paul Baran.
• And now its the era of Information Centric
Networks (ICNs).
 Circuit Switching
• Calls are the basic unit of work in circuit
switched networks .

• The key performance metric is the call

blocking rate.

• A link’s call blocking probability is not

independent of call blocking probability at
other links.
Circuit Switching…
 Packet Switching
• Packets are the basic unit of work in Packet
switched networks.
• Elements of Packet Switching Networks
1. Packet Buffer
2. Buffer Overflow
3. Dropping
• Two key performance metrics are packet
delay and the throughput of packets
• There are 2 type of performance analysis
1. Bottleneck queue in isolation
2. Fluid flowing from source to destination
Packet Switching…
 Information Centric Networks
• Requests for content issued by end users are
the basic unit of work.
• Each piece of content has a name and a
custodian.
• Each content router has a co-located cache
commonly known as Transparent En-Route
Caches(TERC).
Information Centric
Networks…
 Information Centric
Networks…

Node E will follow LRU

algorithm to replace the
existing item in its Cache
 Modeling Network Of Cache
• The richness and complexity results from the
fact that each piece of content has a name i.e.
a distinct identity.
• In ICN models each piece of content i has a
‘popularity’ 𝒑𝒊 .
• Popularity 𝒑𝒊 follows the Zipf Distribution
where it is directly proportional to 1/𝒊𝜶 .
 Modeling Network Of Cache…
• IRM(Independent Reference Model) states
that 𝒑𝒊 is independent of:
o Time ‘t’ ,
o Previous request History for item ‘i’,
o And request for other items ‘j’.
• Least recently used (LRU) cache replacement
is commonly assumed in ICN models.
• In more static scenarios, cache content
replacement is performed on the basis of
measured or anticipated content popularity
over a longer time scale .
 Fixed-point
approximation method
• The rate of content requests at each node can
be expressed as
𝒓𝒊,𝒗 =𝝀𝒊,𝒗 + 𝒗′:𝒊𝜺𝑹(𝒗′;𝒗) 𝒎𝒊,𝒗′
• The miss rate for item i at content router 𝒗
can be expressed as
𝒎𝒊,𝒗 =𝒓𝒊,𝒗 (𝟏 − 𝒒𝒊,𝒗 )
• The hit probability for item i at content router
𝒗:
𝒓𝒊,𝒗
𝒒𝒊,𝒗 =𝒉𝒊𝒕( , 𝒗)
𝒋 𝒓𝒋,𝒗
 Locating Content and Caching
Content
• If all content routers can perform caching, it
can be advantageous to selectively cache
content along the download path, rather than
at each and every content router.
• Caching at more central nodes, cache hit
rates can be improved over.
• How to find content in cache Network?
• Routing a content request along the shortest
path from content requestor to content
custodian.
Locating Content and Caching
Content
 Conclusion
• Identified challenges in the modeling, design
and analysis of information-centric networks.
• Drawing analogies, as well as distinctions,
from past research in both circuit-switched
and packet-switched networks.
• Finding content in a network of caches,
managing the content in those caches.
 References
• [1]B. Ahlgren, C. Dannewitz, C. Imbrenda, D. Kutscher, B.
Ohlman, A survey of information-centric networking,
Commun. Magaz., IEEE 50 (7) (2012).
• [2]A. Erlang, Solution of some problems in the theory of
probabilities of significance in automatic telephone
exchanges, in: E. Brockmeyer , H.Halstkom, A. Jensen (Eds.),
The life and works of A.K. Erlang , Transactions of the Danish
Academy of Technical Sciences (ATS),No. 2 1948. Originally
published in Danish in Elektrotkeknikeren, vol. 13, 1917,.
• [3]S. Eum, K. Nakauchi, M. Murata, Y. Shoji, N. Nishinaga,
Catt: potential based routing with content caching for icn, in:
Proceedings of the Second Edition of the ICN Workshop on
Information-Centric Networking, ICN ’12, ACM, New York,
NY, USA, 2012.
 References
• [4]E.J. Rosensweig, J. Kurose, A network calculus for cache
networks, in: INFOCOM, IEEE, 2013.
• [5]A. Girard, Routing and Dimensioning in Circuit-Switched
Networks,1st ed., Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co.,
Inc., Boston, MA,USA, 1990.
• [6]J.-Y. Le Boudec, P. Thiran, Network Calculus: A Theory of
Deterministic Queuing Systems for the Internet, Springer-
Verlag,Berlin, Heidelberg, 2001.
• [7]R. Cruz, A calculus for network delay. i. Network elements
in isolation, IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory 37 (1) (1991) 114–131.
• [8]Y. Jin, W. Qu, K. Li, A survey of cache/proxy for
transparent data replication, in: Second International
Conference on Semantics,Knowledge and Grid, 2006, SKG
’06, November 2006.
Thank You.