NDN Fabric: Where the Software-Defined Networking Meets the Content-Centric Model

Named Data Networking (NDN) is a new network architecture based on the content-based model that has fundamental differences to the legacy path-based model. The first is focused on the content itself, and the latter focuses on the location of data. Both models provide different benefits to the end-user and the network, but they often cannot inter-operate due to their significant design differences. Therefore, we propose a new network architecture and protocol, both named NDN-Fab, to allow the inter-operation between path-based and content-based network architectures. NDN-Fab is based on the Fabric model and allows the edge network to operate with content-centric architectures, such as the NDN, while the core network can operate with a high-performance path-based communication model. The Core network uses the NDN-Fab protocol that can be embedded in the programmable data plane hardware of the core network’s switches, allowing for the sending of multicast packets and link-layer packet steering. Our results show that NDN-Fab can be more efficient in packet forwarding than IPv4, achieving up to 150 times lower average delay, 100 times lower network dispersion, and it managed to process 21% more packets.