Networking named content

TLDR

Current network use is dominated by content distribution and retrieval, yet existing protocols are designed for host‑to‑host conversations, requiring a mapping from user‑desired content to network locations. The paper introduces Content‑Centric Networking (CCN), a paradigm that decouples location from identity, security, and access by retrieving content chunks by name. CCN employs IP‑derived routing of named content, enabling scalable, secure, and high‑performance delivery, as demonstrated by an implementation that supports secure file downloads and VoIP calls. The implementation shows that CCN delivers secure file downloads and VoIP calls with robust performance and resilience.

Abstract

Current network use is dominated by content distribution and retrieval yet current networking protocols are designed for conversations between hosts. Accessing content and services requires mapping from the what that users care about to the network's where. We present Content-Centric Networking (CCN) which uses content chunks as a primitive---decoupling location from identity, security and access, and retrieving chunks of content by name. Using new approaches to routing named content, derived from IP, CCN simultaneously achieves scalability, security, and performance. We describe our implementation of the architecture's basic features and demonstrate its performance and resilience with secure file downloads and VoIP calls.