Method for Collaborative Caching for Content-Oriented Networks

• US 20130227048A1
• Filed: 02/28/2012
• Published: 08/29/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Futurewei Technologies Incorporated (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Xie, Haiyong, Shi, Guangyu, Guo, Shuo
• Granted Patent: US 8,762,477 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/213
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/12 Shortest path evaluation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/64 using an overlay routing layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/289 Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data consumer application, e.g. in same machine, in same home or in same sub-network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context

Abstract

A content router comprising a plurality of interfaces configured to receive and forward a plurality of interests for content and content data in a content oriented network (CON), a cache configured to store content data, and a memory component configured to maintain a forward information base (FIB) that associates content with one or more interfaces on which the interests and content data are received and forwarded, and an availability FIB (AFIB) that associates content data with one or more corresponding collaborative caching routers in the CON that cache the content data.

Claims

1. A content router comprising:

a plurality of interfaces configured to receive and forward a plurality of interests for content and content data in a content oriented network (CON);

a cache configured to store content data; and

a memory component configured to maintain a forward information base (FIB) that associates content with one or more interfaces on which the interests and content data are received and forwarded, and an availability FIB (AFIB) that associates content data with one or more corresponding collaborative caching routers in the CON that cache the content data.

2. The content router of claim 1, wherein the content data associated with the collaborative caching content routers in the AFIB are ranked according to content popularity in the CON, and wherein the content popularity is based on a quantity of received interests from a plurality of users of the CON.

3. The content router of claim 2, wherein at least some of the collaborative caching routers have different corresponding link costs, and wherein the most popular content data are cached at the collaborative caching routers that have the lowest link costs.

4. The content router of claim 1, wherein the content data associated with the collaborative caching routers in the AFIB comprise one or more content objects that are stored in the cache and associated with the content router and one or more content objects that are associated with and cached at one or more of the collaborative caching routers.

5. The content router of claim 4, wherein at least some of the collaborative content routers store different quantities of content objects than stored in the cache of the content router.

6. The content router of claim 1, wherein the cache is split into an advertised cache segment that stores content data advertised to the collaborative caching routers and a complementary cache segment that stores remaining content data without advertisement, and wherein the advertised cache segment is substantially larger in size than the complementary cache segment.

7. The content router of claim 6, wherein the advertised cache comprises a plurality of content objects that are similarly ranked according to popularity in the content router and the collaborative caching routers, and wherein the complementary cache segment comprises one or more content objects that are differently ranked according to popularity in the content router and the collaborative caching routers.

8. The content router of claim 6, wherein the complementary cache segment'"'"'s size is decreased and the advertised cache segment'"'"'s size is increased to cache an increased quantity of most popular content objects, and wherein the complementary cache segment'"'"'s size is increased and the advertised cache segment'"'"'s size is decreased to reduce a cache miss rate of the content router.

9. A network component comprising:

a transmitter/receiver (transceiver) configured to receive and forward interests and content data in a network;

a memory comprising a content store (CS) for caching content, a pending interest table (PIT) for tracking pending requests for content, a forwarding information base (FIB) for associating content with one or more interfaces, and an availability FIB (AFIB) for associating content with one or more collaborative caches and ranking the content according to content popularity in the network.

10. The network component of claim 9, wherein the FIB comprises a plurality of content name prefixes each associated with one or more corresponding interfaces on which the content is received or forwarded, and wherein the AFIB comprises a plurality of content name prefixes each associated with one or more corresponding content routers comprising the collaborative caches that cache corresponding content.

11. The network component of claim 10, wherein the content routers are indicated using a plurality of router identifiers (IDs) in the AFIB.

12. The network component of claim 9, wherein the FIB and the AFIB are combined in a single data structure that comprises a plurality of content name prefixes associated with a plurality of content routers comprising the collaborative caches that cache corresponding content and with a plurality of corresponding interfaces on which the corresponding content is received or forwarded.

13. The network component of claim 9 further comprising:

a collaborative cache map component configured to receive and gather propagated information regarding the network'"'"'s topology and collaborative caching;

a user interest measurement component configured to measure a popularity ranking sequence for the content in the network;

a collaborative caching mechanism component configured to utilize a dynamic cache size mechanism to cache the most popular content in the network; and

a cache performance evaluation component configured to measure a cache miss rate for the interests received from a plurality of content routers and provide feedback to the content routers to support collaborative caching between the content routers.

14. The network component of claim 9, wherein the FIB and the AFIB are maintained and operated to process and forward the interests and content data at a data plane, and wherein the AFIB is updated and advertised to a plurality of content routers that comprise the collaborative caches at a control plane.

15. A method implemented by a network component, comprising:

joint collaborative caching for a plurality of content objects that are distributed between a plurality of content routers in a network;

maintaining a plurality of mappings between the cached and distributed content objects and the corresponding caching content routers; and

forwarding, using a transmitter, a plurality of received interests and data for the content objects among the content routers at a data plane.

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

collecting, using a receiver, information about topology and collaborative caching in the network;

measuring, using a processor, a ranking sequence for a quantity of most popular content objects in the network based on the received interests from the content users;

caching in a cache a subset of the quantity of most popular content objects in the network;

measuring a cache miss rate of the received interests; and

using the measured cache miss rate to adjust a size of an advertised cache portion and a complementary cache portion of the cache.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

increasing the size of the advertised cache portion to increase the cached subset of the quantity of most popular content objects in the network if the measured cache miss rate is smaller than a threshold for collaborative caching for the content routers in the network; and

increasing the size of the complementary cache portion to reduce the cache miss rate if the measured cache miss rate is larger than the threshold.

18. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

receiving an interest for a content object;

returning the content object if the content object is available in the cache;

forwarding the interest to a source of the content if the interest is received from one of the content routers and the content object is not in the cache;

forwarding the interest to the source of the content if the interest is received from a content user, the content object does not belong to the most popular content objects in the network, and the content object is not in the cache; and

forwarding the interest to a collaborative content router if the interest is received from a content user, the content object belongs to the most popular content objects in the network, and the content object is not in the cache.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising:

receiving the content object from the source of the content in response to forwarding the interest to the source;

caching the received content object in the complementary cache portion if the interest was received from one of the content routers; and

returning the content object.

20. The method of claim 16 further comprising:

receiving content data;

dropping the content data if the content data is not indicated in a local pending interest table (PIT);

forwarding the content data on one or a plurality of interfaces associated with the content data in the PIT if the content data is indicated in the PIT; and

removing an entry for the content data from the PIT if the content data is indicated in the PIT.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising:

adding an entry for the content data in a content store (CS) if the content data is indicated in the PIT; and

adding an entry for the content data in a forward information base (FIB) if the content data is indicated in the PIT.