ICN:

Information Centric Networking

A new networking model for mobile networks and beyond

Paul Polakos, Fellow, Cisco Systems

June 29, 2016

Overview - Where Mobility Networks are headed
Key Aspects of 5G
5G*
•  Why is it needed? What is it? When is it?
•  Review of “5G” Technologies
5G RAN Evolution
•  CRAN architecture
•  Low cost, neutral host, wideband access points
5G Core Evolution
•  Network slicing to support wide range of use cases/
verticals & business models
•  Core evolution including Control/User plane split
5G Internet Evolution
•  Information Centric Networking
•  New model for modern internet usage based on
optimized mobility, security and storage
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 2

*see: https://www.ciscoknowledgenetwork.com/files/545_11-3-2015-5G_on_Cisco_Knowledge_Network_v4.pdf?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=&PRIORITY_CODE=194542_20
5G Core Evolution
Enhanced core network to support wide range of use
cases, verticals and business models

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 3
5G Architecture
Vision
Access Agnostic
CP / UP split

Source: NGMN 5G White paper

February 2015

5G must flexibly support certain RATS for certain applications with certain network functions
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 4
Network Slicing !  3GPP Dedicated Core networks (Décor) –
a potential enabler for network slicing
• Décor feature enables an operator to deploy
multiple logical mobile core networks
connected to the same RAN
• Network slicing use cases which only differ
in terms of the required CN configuration
could be realized by the Décor feature (i.e.
via multiple dedicated CNs)
• Cisco standards team contributed
extensively to Rel-13 Décor work in 3GPP
• Cisco is a supporting company of the on-
going work on Rel-14 enhancements for
Décor (aiming at enhanced isolation
between different dedicated CNs).
!  Industry still working to identify 5G use
Source: NGMN 5G White paper, February 2015
cases for network slicing

Network slicing to provide flexibility to effectively/efficiently support various use case/verticals &
business models © 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 5
5G Internet Evolution
Information Centric Networking
New model for modern internet usage based on
optimized mobility, security and storage

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 6
Future Network Challenges
!  With
New Emerging Technologies: IOT, unlicensed/Wi-Fi evolution
How do we implement mobility across this diverse access environment?
•  Thecomplex mobility network infrastructure was created due to the need to preserve the session when devices moved from
one IP address to another (IP address preservation).
•  If we eliminate sessions … can we eliminate this complexity and make mobility access agnostic?
!  Huge
traffic growth expected, driven by content/video consumption.
How do we get content close to the edge (Current CDN technology seems insufficient)
•  Can we cache content in the network in a distributed fashion to create an intrinsic, scalable content centric network?
!  How
do we deal with security and associated encryption issues while providing reasonable
network management (HTTP 2.0)?
•  Can we secure the content rather than the container (e.g. router, host) or the communication channel?
!  How do we more effectively deploy broadcast and multicast services ubiquitously in face of
today’s cumbersome overlay methods?
!  Can we make mobility more efficient by making it an intrinsic aspect of the network?

ANSWER: YES -> We need to consider an Information Centric Network

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 7
Information Centric Networking
Providing a New Foundation for 5G
THREE MAJOR COMPONENTS
•  Can be encrypted as an object
CONTENT AS AN OBJECT •  Supports blind caches and network storage
Slice Content into discrete namable
chunks capabilities
•  Supports multipath / multicast capabilities

•  Enables intelligent SDN based routing

NAME BASED ROUTING •  Network based “DNS equivalent”
A name could refer to any number
of entities •  User / Application identity no longer tied to IP
address supporting mobility, multipath / multicast

•  Address TCP issues

TRANSPORT
•  Local cache can be used for error recovery
ENHANCEMENTS
•  Usable by non-content related traffic

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 8
 Information Centric Networking
Providing a New Foundation
Deliver services using a new communication
model that addresses modern Internet usage
Collapse to single layer

Storage &
Overlay Exploits latest Future Internet Architecture
research
Security
Overlay
!  Mobility – eliminate need for special
mobility overlays
Mobility
Overlay
!  Security – guarantee the integrity of every
data object

!  Storage – dynamic placement of information

Transform the Overlaid IP Transport Network
To an Integrated Mobile, Secured, Distributed Storage Network
anywhere in the network
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 9
 NDN* Protocol Design Principles
i.  Universality: the protocol should be a common network protocol for all applications
and network environments
ii.  Data-Centricity and Data Immutability: the protocol should fetch uniquely named,
immutable “data packets” requested using “interest packets”
iii.  Securing Data Directly: security should be the property of data packets, staying the
same wheter the packets are in motion or at rest
iv.  Hierarchical Naming: packets should carry hierarchical names to enable
demultiplexing and provide structured content
v.  In-Network Name Discovery: Interests should be able to use incomplete names to
retrieve data packets**
vi.  Hop-by-Hop Flow Balance: over each link, one interest packet should bring back
one data packet
*http://named-data.net/project/ndn-design-principles/
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 10
**Active discussion topic
 Information Centric Networking
(NDN/CCN) Architecture
Underlying Principle: Request / Response communication paradigm

Model for information retrieval –

•  ask the network for a chunk of data by name
•  return the (named) chunk to where the request came from
Hierarchical (and perhaps
Two basic types of packets:
human-readable) ContentName

eg /conf/papers/NDN.pdf Interest
nb variable-length content names are Data
routable entities— Request / response model "# data
- conventional routing protocols operate delivered over request path
on structured content names rather
than structured IP addresses
- ensures scalability

ICN Introduces per-packet state into the routed-network fabric

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 11

*NDN and CCN are closely-related ICN archtectures

ICN Routing Example – basic concepts
Interest Packet
ICN routers comprise three
components (rather than one)

i.  FIB: Forwarding Information Table

– can have multiple forwording
entries per prefix

ii.  PIT: Pending Interest Table – Data Packet

return route state for outstanding
requests

iii. Content Store: Integral content

cache in networking layer

Three main components of ICN: Forwarding Info, Pending Interest & Content Storage
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 12
ICN communication principles

•  Packets say ‘what’ not

‘where’ (no addresses)
•  Pull-based model
controlled by consumer
•  No connections
•  Dynamic in-network
forwarding decisions
•  in-network storage

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 13
What per-packet state buys
•  Built-in Mobility support
•  Built-in multicast delivery
•  Instantaneous feedback loop at every network hop
•  Flow balance: Key for Scalable Multi-Source Multi-Destination data delivery
•  Interest packet retrieves one Data packet across each hop on each link
•  Inherent multi-destination, multi-path congestion control
•  Opportunity to re-think congestion control from ground up (eg non-flow-based congestion control)
•  Hop-by-hop congestion control is arguably a lot easier than end-to-end.
•  Loop-freeness: keeping pending Interests enables loop detection
•  Enables multipath forwarding
•  Attack Resiliency / example: Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) mitigation
•  DDOS in IP networks – hard to mitigate because network is stateless
•  ICN: (1) unsolicited data packets are dropped: Interest state is erased once data is forwarded – future
copies of data dropped;
(2) flooding interests: knowing which interface the interest came on – can backpressure interests.
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 14
 Security—Trust the Content
(not the connection)

!  For data received, the user can verify:

!  Integrity: Is data intact and complete?
!  Authenticity: Who asserts this data is an answer
(provenance)?
!  Correctness: Is this an answer to my question
(relevance)?

!  Key concept: Secure the content

not the container or the communication channel
!  ContentObject := Name; SignedInfo; Signature;
Content

Disentangle issues of user privacy & data integrity, authenticity, confidentiality

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 15
ICN Names
Remove constraint that packet labels can only identify communication
endpoints. Generalize label # ICN Names can identify anything, eg an
endpoint, a video chunk, an RT voice segment, a command to an IoT device.
•  Naming schema is set by the application design
Names are opaque to the network
•  Names defined with a specific scope and context; may have local or global
meaning. Unique within their designated scope
Naming strategies are a topic of current research – how applications define
names that facilitate both application development and network delivery.
•  In CCN/NDN, Name # hierarchically structured Object label

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 16
Back to
5G Core Evolution
Network Slicing provides a minimally-disruptive
means to introduce ICN into the 5G Core in an
economically and operationally feasible way.

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 17
 Network Slicing
Basic Concept
Slice Orchestration •  Network slicing refers to the ability to run
multiple logical networks as virtually
independent business operation on a
common physical infrastructure
ICN Router A
Dedicated ICN Router B
Core 1 PGW ICN Router C Network slicing goes hand-in-hand with SDN
MME and NFV
RAN PGW
PGW
Services
SGW PGW •  Virtualization and automation control of
Dedicated Services
compute and connectivity provides a
Core 3
basis for flexibly allocating resources to a
virtually independent business operation
APNs or GTP-C FMSS
DeCor or MOCN
Redirection
Slicing allocates traffic to resources and
hence should operate at many levels of
Programmable traffic flow steering functions in the user plane which are: (1) existing 3GPP
selection functions endowed with interfaces for control (e.g. APN selection), or (2) new selection
granularity
functions that introduce points of flexibility where none where present before (e.g. Décor)
A “meta/slice orchestrator” designed to use a slice template to instantiate a slice upon which the •  S & P gateway selection, APN selection,
virtually independent business operation association for that slice can be built selection based on “UE User
Steering Control to ensure any traffic defined at any granular level reaches the slice resources that
consume it
Type” (Décor), …

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 18
 Network Slicing – Option A
Option A:
Slice Orchestration •  Using Decor or MOCN to route ICN traffic
to a dedicated core.
•  Assumes an ICN UE (all traffic is ICN
ICN Router A based)
Dedicated
Core 1 Services •  Aspects of the dedicated core may or may
MME not be integrated into the ICN router (as
RAN PGW
PGW
Services needed) ... e.g. using NFV.
SGW PGW

Dedicated Services
Core 3

APNs or GTP-C FMSS

DeCor or MOCN
Redirection

Programmable traffic flow steering functions in the user plane which are: (1) existing 3GPP
selection functions endowed with interfaces for control (e.g. APN selection), or (2) new selection
functions that introduce points of flexibility where none where present before (e.g. Décor)
A “meta/slice orchestrator” designed to use a slice template to instantiate a slice upon which the
virtually independent business operation association for that slice can be built
Steering Control to ensure any traffic defined at any granular level reaches the slice resources that
consume it

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 19
 Network Slicing – Option B
Option B:
Slice Orchestration •  Using APNs to direct traffic to an ICN
Router “PGW”.
•  Assumes a UE has a dedicated IP
address/APN for a separate ICN stack
Dedicated ICN Router B
Core 1 PGW Services •  ICN Router B can integrate some PGW
MME functionality
RAN PGW
PGW
Services
SGW PGW

Dedicated Services
Core 3

APNs or GTP-C FMSS

DeCor or MOCN
Redirection

Programmable traffic flow steering functions in the user plane which are: (1) existing 3GPP
selection functions endowed with interfaces for control (e.g. APN selection), or (2) new selection
functions that introduce points of flexibility where none where present before (e.g. Décor)
A “meta/slice orchestrator” designed to use a slice template to instantiate a slice upon which the
virtually independent business operation association for that slice can be built
Steering Control to ensure any traffic defined at any granular level reaches the slice resources that
consume it

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 20
 Network Slicing – Option C
Option C:
Slice Orchestration •  Using 3GPP FMSS (Gi-LAN traffic
steering) to direct traffic to an ICN Router
•  UE can put an ICN client stack in “the
app” and run it over IP
Dedicated
Core 1 ICN Router C
•  ICN Router C can be a “generic” ICN
MME router
RAN PGW
PGW
Services
SGW PGW

Dedicated Services
Core 3

APNs or GTP-C FMSS

DeCor or MOCN
Redirection

Programmable traffic flow steering functions in the user plane which are: (1) existing 3GPP
selection functions endowed with interfaces for control (e.g. APN selection), or (2) new selection
functions that introduce points of flexibility where none where present before (e.g. Décor)
A “meta/slice orchestrator” designed to use a slice template to instantiate a slice upon which the
virtually independent business operation association for that slice can be built
Steering Control to ensure any traffic defined at any granular level reaches the slice resources that
consume it

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 21
 Network Slicing with Multiple RATs
Basic Concept
5G RAT Other
•  The mobile ICN Routers can also be the
Network
common “first” ICN router for other
...

adjacent (typically operator managed/

Wi-Fi owned/leased) RATs to support mobility
ICN Router A
ICN Router B
and multi-path.
Dedicated
Core 1 PGW ICN Router C

MME
RAN PGW
PGW
Services
SGW PGW

Dedicated Services
Core 3

APNs or GTP-C FMSS

DeCor or MOCN
Redirection

Programmable traffic flow steering functions in the user plane which are: (1) existing 3GPP
selection functions endowed with interfaces for control (e.g. APN selection), or (2) new selection
functions that introduce points of flexibility where none where present before (e.g. Décor)
A “meta/slice orchestrator” designed to use a slice template to instantiate a slice upon which the
virtually independent business operation association for that slice can be built
Steering Control to ensure any traffic defined at any granular level reaches the slice resources that
consume it

© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 22
In Conclusion
•  5G will introduce a combination of RAN and Core transformations
•  5G evolution must meet major service objectives and cost reductions
•  Support any access network and any service
•  “Network Slicing” to both create a context for “Mobility as a Service” and provide a
pathway to introduce new networking technologies (eg ICN)
•  Information Centric Networking (ICN) introduces mobility friendly,
secure and content-aware networking framework
•  ICN has a much broader application space than Mobility.
But 5G is a prime, well-timed initial use-case
•  Considerable research effort is systematically addressing protocol design issues
•  Current efforts to raise visibility in standards and industry bodies (eg 3GPP, NGMN, 4G-
Americas, ATIS, ITU-T, etc) is having desired impact
•  Commercialization in the 5G timeframe requires significant push by industry to move beyond
the academic phase. Cisco is pulling together parties interested to work collectively toward
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 23
this objective.
 Links to some References:
Introductory Papers:
•  V. Jacobson et al, Networking Named Content, CoNEXT ‘09 Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Emerging
Networking Experiments and Technologies
•  L. Zhang et al, Named Data Networking, SIGCOMM Comput. Commun. Rev., 44(3):66–73, July 2014.
•  G. White, G. Rutz, Content Delivery with Content-Centric Networking, Feb 2016,
http://www.cablelabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Content-Delivery-with-Content-Centric-Networking-Feb-2016.pdf
Blog Posts:
•  G. White (CableLabs), Reinventing the Internet, http://www.cablelabs.com/re-inventing-the-internet/
Papers, Tech Reports, Tutorials:
•  http://named-data.net/ and http://named-data.net/publications/
•  https://www.ccnx.org/papers-tech-reports/
ICN-Research Group (current/past material and links to Related Conferences and Workshops):
•  http://trac.tools.ietf.org/group/irtf/trac/wiki/icnrg
Network Application Example (one of many):
•  G. Carofiglio et al, Scalable Mobile Backhauling via Information-Centric Networking, Proc. of IEEE LANMAN, 2015.
© 2014 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 24
Thank you