Path switching in content centric and named data networks

ICN communication is inherently multipath and potentially multi-destination. Content Centric and Named Data Networks at present do not offer a mechanism to direct traffic onto a specific path in multipath or a specific destination in a multi-destination environment, because the forwarding plane multiplexes packets across nexthops dynamically. This makes it challenging to provide practical multipath traceroute and ping applications, or implement multipath-aware congestion control, traffic engineering or SDN solutions. The symmetry of forward and reverse paths in Content Centric and Named Data Networks allows one to compute an end-to-end path label in a Data message on the reverse path and subsequently use this label to forward an Interest message through a specific nexthop. ICN Path Switching is a method of high-speed Interest forwarding in Content Centric and Named Data networks based on exact matching of a nexthop label retrieved from the Interest's path label against a nexthop ID in the ICN Forwarder's Adjacency database. ICN Path Switching maintains all major characteristics of CCN / NDN architectures, such as multicasting, caching, flow balance, etc. Simulations demonstrate that path labels are consistent with ICN control plane routing state in the presence of route updates. Analysis of ICN Path Switching with regards to Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and Segment Routing architectures suggests that it offers similar advantages at lower complexity with the potential to simplify network operations.