Content-centric Networking

Named data networking (also content-centric networking, content-based networking, data-oriented networking or information-centric networking) is an alternative approach to the architecture of computer networks. Its founding principle is that a communication network should allow a user to focus on the data he or she needs, rather than having to reference a specific, physical location where that data is to be retrieved from. This stems from the fact that the vast majority of current Internet usage (a "high 90% level of traffic") consists of data being disseminated from a source to a number of users.

The contemporary Internet architecture revolves around a host-based conversation model, created in the 1970s to allow geographically distributed users to use a few big, immobile computers. The content-centric networking seeks to adapt the network architecture to current network usage patterns.

Content-centric networking comes with potential for a wide range of benefits such as content caching to reduce congestion and improve delivery speed, simpler configuration of network devices, and building security into the network at the data level. However, the change of communication paradigm may pose problems for certain types of network activities, for instance for real-time multimedia applications, but recent research indicates these applications are feasible. Furthermore, building content routers that support content-centric networking at high speed is still an open problem to solve that has gained research interest only recently.

Application-layer designs have also been proposed for deploying a content-centric interface. This has benefits such as easier deployment, backwards compatibility and more flexible delivery support. The Juno middleware offers applications a content-centric request/reply interface that can be utilised alongside existing content providers. Juno also introduces the concept of a delivery-centric interface, which extends the traditional content-centric interface to allow applications to stipulate multiple diverse delivery requirements that place certain constraints on how the content should be provided. For instance, these constraints can deal with such things as performance, resilience, security, monetary cost and anonymity. Through such an interface, applications can shape how the underlying delivery is performed without needing to handle such concerns themselves.