Jointly Optimal Routing and Caching for Arbitrary Network Topologies

TL;DR

This paper introduces polynomial-time approximation algorithms for joint routing and caching optimization in arbitrary networks, significantly reducing routing costs compared to previous methods.

Contribution

It presents the first polynomial-time approximation algorithms for joint routing and caching in arbitrary topologies, applicable to both source and hop-by-hop routing.

Findings

Algorithms achieve constant-factor approximation guarantees.

Simulations show cost reductions of several orders of magnitude.

Distributed adaptive algorithms perform effectively across various topologies.

Abstract

We study a problem of fundamental importance to ICNs, namely, minimizing routing costs by jointly optimizing caching and routing decisions over an arbitrary network topology. We consider both source routing and hop-by-hop routing settings. The respective offline problems are NP-hard. Nevertheless, we show that there exist polynomial time approximation algorithms producing solutions within a constant approximation from the optimal. We also produce distributed, adaptive algorithms with the same approximation guarantees. We simulate our adaptive algorithms over a broad array of different topologies. Our algorithms reduce routing costs by several orders of magnitude compared to prior art, including algorithms optimizing caching under fixed routing.