Object-oriented Packet Caching for ICN

TL;DR

This paper introduces Object-oriented Packet Caching (OPC), a novel scheme for ICN routers that combines object-level indexing with packet-level storage, improving caching efficiency and reducing network and server load.

Contribution

OPC overcomes SRAM bottlenecks in ICN packet caching by integrating object-level indexing with packet-level storage, enhancing cache performance.

Findings

OPC reduces network load significantly.

OPC improves cache hit ratio.

OPC outperforms traditional caching schemes.

Abstract

One of the most discussed features offered by Information-centric Networking (ICN) architectures is the ability to support packet-level caching at every node in the network. By individually naming each packet, ICN allows routers to turn their queueing buffers into packet caches, thus exploiting the network's existing storage resources. However, the performance of packet caching at commodity routers is restricted by the small capacity of their SRAM, which holds the index for the packets stored at the, slower, DRAM. We therefore propose Object-oriented Packet Caching (OPC), a novel caching scheme that overcomes the SRAM bottleneck, by combining object-level indexing in the SRAM with packet-level storage in the DRAM. We implemented OPC and experimentally evaluated it over various cache placement policies, showing that it can enhance the impact of ICN packet-level caching, reducing both network and server load.