On the incremental deployment of overlay information centric networks

It has long been realized that the proliferation of information-centric applications and services must be reflected in a corresponding shift of the underlying Internet architecture. Even though users increasingly focus on the desired information, the underlying network still focuses on the endpoints providing/consuming this information and in many cases this mismatch has resulted in an inefficient utilization of network resources, as demonstrated by peer-to-peer (P2P) and file sharing applications. In view of this situation, many research projects have focused on the investigation of alternative networking models centered around information. However, less attention has been paid to the transition process from the current end host centric model to an information centric one. In this paper, we propose an overlay multicast-enabled, publish-subscribe architecture and focus on its gradual deployment both inside administrative domain boundaries as well as across the Internet. Our simulation results demonstrate the benefits for individual network operators as they gradually adopt our new networking model, and shed further light on the extent of deployment required within an administrative domain in order for our approach to perform optimally.