Content-based publish/subscribe networking and information-centric networking

Abstract

On-line information comes in different forms and is accessed in different ways and for different purposes. For example, a recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony differs from a storm warning from the local weather service. Beethoven's Ninth is a large media file with perpetual validity that is typically accessed on demand by users. By contrast, a storm warning is a small ephemeral message typically pushed by the weather service to all users in a specific geographic area. We argue that both should and would be well supported by an information-centric network. More specifically we argue three points. First, modern applications, reflecting the nature of human communications, use and transmit large and long-lived files as well as small ephemeral messages. Second, accessing those two types of information involves significantly different operations within the network. Third, despite their differences, both types of information would benefit from an addressing scheme based on content rather than on more or less flat identifiers, which means that both should be integrated to some extent within a unified content-based routing infrastructure.