Subject: [irtf-discuss] ICNRG side meeting @ IETF-81 -- Agenda

From: Börje Ohlman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:18:34 +0200

ICNRG side meeting @ IETF-81

Date: Tuesday 2011-07-26, 13:00 -- 15:00
Location: Room 303AB

Draft Agenda
- Overview and Agenda bashing - Börje & Dirk [10 min]
- Information-Centric Networking Concepts and Scope -Dirk [30 min]
- ICN Research issues - Joerg Ott [15 min]
- ICNRG charter proposal presentation and discussion  - Börje [45 min]
- Next Steps [20 min]

For more information see the ICNRG Wiki page:
 - http://trac.tools.ietf.org/group/irtf/trac/wiki/icnrg

You are also most welcome to subscribe to the mailing list:
 - https://listserv.netlab.nec.de/mailman/listinfo/icn-interest

If you are not able to attend the ICNRG side meeting but want to express your support for the forming of an ICN IRTF research group you can do so at the mailing list or directly to us.

    Börje Ohlman & Dirk Kutscher

============================================

Proposed Charter
------------------------

Background
----------------

Distributing and manipulating named information is a major application in the Internet today. In addition to Web-based content distribution, other distribution technologies (such as P2P and CDN) have emerged and are promoting a communication model of accessing data by name, regardless of origin server location. 

In order to respond to increasing traffic volume in the current Internet for applications such as mobile video and cloud computing, a set of disparate technologies and distribution services are employed that employ caching, replication and content distribution in different specific ways. These approaches are currently deployed in separate silos -- different CDN providers and P2P applications rely on proprietary distribution technologies. It is not possible to uniquely and securely identify named information independent of the distribution channel, and the different distribution approaches are typically implemented as an overlay, leading to unnecessary inefficiency.

Information-centric networking (ICN) is an approach to evolve the Internet infrastructure to directly support this use by introducing uniquely named data as a core Internet principle.  Data becomes independent from location, application, storage, and means of transportation, enabling in-network caching and replication. The expected benefits are improved efficiency, better scalability with respect to information/bandwidth demand and better robustness in challenging communication scenarios. These concepts are known under different terms, including but not limited to: Network of Information (NetInf), Content-Centric Networking (CCN), Named Data Networking (NDN) and Publish/Subscribe Networking.

ICN concepts can be applied to different layers of the protocol stack: name-based data access can be implemented on top of existing IP infrastructure, -- e.g., by providing resource naming, ubiquitous caching and corresponding transport services -- or it can actually be seen as a packet-level inter-networking technology that would incur fundamental changes to Internet routing and forwarding. In summary, ICN is expected to evolve the Internet architecture at different layers.

Research Challenges
------------------------------

Moving the focus from nodes to information objects brings scalability issues to a new level. Currently the Internet is addressing on the order of 10^9 nodes whereas the number of addressable ICN objects is expected to be several orders of magnitude higher. Name-based routing and name resolution have to be designed to scale accordingly, also considering mobility support and disruption tolerance. This is related to the question how objects are actually named, e.g., using flat labels with name/content integrity or more structured, possibly aggregatable names.

Accessing copies of named content enables new data transport concepts, such as receiver-oriented (pull-based) transport protocols. Caches in the network may play an active role in transport sessions, enabling shorter feedback loops and specific transport protocol features in challenged networks, quite different from end-to-end transport as in TCP today. Leveraging the existence of multiple copies of each object enables new transport strategies such as parallel interaction with multiple caches. On the other hand, once a named data object exists in multiple caches, consistent and coherent update semantics and supporting protocols have to be defined, dealing with, e.g., multiple writers updating a named object at the time when only connected via a challenged network.

With ICN new security models are needed. Today's host-centric trust model, retrieving data from a trusted server via a secure connection no longer applies to ICN instead, security/trust/identity functions are bound to the information object themselves, employing signed objects and and ensuring name-data integrity. Moreover, not all objects will be universally accessible, requiring authorization and scoping mechanisms.

The ICN paradigm is also expected to require new interfaces for applications to interact with the network. For example, a new API should let the application developers take advantage of location-independent naming, caching, and multi access functionality in ICN.

It is expected that ICN will require changes to the business, legal and regulatory landscape. Examples include changes to how peering agreements are made in a network that heavily relies on caching. Compensation schemes for user nodes contributing cache space, bandwidth and/or battery for participating in delivery of objects to third parties. The caching of objects also has implications on how the legal framework deals with caching objects in transit: are they regarded as being in the user's possession with respect to copyright and/or other legal violations?

An ICN approach potentially has better energy efficiency than existing approaches has data has to be transported, on average, over shorter distances. While more cache storage has to be powered in the network, even that might be energy-efficient as the cooling load can be better distributed to more, but smaller installations. ICN has the potential to improve relevant metrics like invested energy per user-perceived latency.

Finally, deploying new ICN technology requires a well defined migration path from today's networking technology, avoiding any forklift upgrades or flag days. Migration and inter-working possibilities are also required to foster large-scale experiments and thorough evaluation of ICN concepts and specific concrete approaches. The development of corresponding test-beds and experimentation facilities is considered a very important potential activity area of the ICN RG.

ICNRG Objectives
-------------------------

The main objective of the ICNRG is to advance the state of ICN research in at least the mentioned areas, focusing on solutions that are relevant for evolving the Internet at large.

The ICNRG will provide a forum for exchange and analysis of ICN research ideas and proposals, work that is based on implementation experiences will be given preference.

The ICNRG will produce a document that provides guidelines for experimental activities in the area of ICN so that different, alternative solutions can be compared consistently.

The ICNRG will investigate components of a common protocol framework for information-centric networking, aiming to identify key ICN architecture invariants across different specific approaches and protocols for future standardization.

The ICNRG will foster the development of ICN testbeds for performing experiments with running code.

The ICNRG will initiate discussions about desirable interfaces to an ICN, as relevant for an application layer, from network management systems, or others.

The intention is that one result from this work could be a common protocol framework that can be used to identify protocols for standardization. These protocols may or may not re-use existing IETF protocols.

Milestones
---------------

The ICNRG will not work along a complete list of milestones, but will be set to meet the following starting point, intermediate and potential long-term goals:

1. As a starting point the ICNRG will produce a document that describes the ICN problem statement, the main concepts and research challenges in depth.

2. An an intermediate milestone, the ICNRG will produce a document that provides a survey of different approaches and techniques.

3. Eventual long-term goals would be documents describing an ICN architecture and possible specific (protocol) elements, as well as documents providing recommendations to the IETF regarding transferring ICNRG results to standardization work.

Organization
-----------------

The ICNRG will use an open mailing list ([email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>) as the main communication vehicle for the group.

Most of the communication inside the ICNRG will be done through use of mailing lists, however, the group will hold regular physical meetings at least once a year in conjunction with IETF meetings. Additional meetings may be held at IETF or other venues, such as in conjunction with related academic conferences.

The ICNRG will produce Informational and Experimental RFCs in order to document the activity of the group and to formalize the outcome of the research topics carried by the group. In addition, such documentation could become input to IETF working groups.