Dirk Kutscher

Join us for the ICN-2015 Conference in San Francisco from Sep. 30 to Oct. 2.

ACM ICN is an annual conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) on information-centric networking.

In a nutshell, this year's conference includes
- 1 keynote given by Van Jacobson
- 19 full papers presented in single track format
- 8 posters
- 10 demos
- 2 full-day tutorials
- 1 industrial panel

Conference details:
http://conferences.sigcomm.org/acm-icn/2015/

Registration details:
http://www.regonline.com/icn2015

Keynote:
- Van Jacobson, Internet pioneer and core architect of Named Data
Networking (NDN), will talk about "Improving the Internet with ICN".

Tutorials:
- CCN: Practical CCNx - Protocol and Code
- NDN: Security & Synchronization in Named Data Networking (NDN)

Panel:
- Next Steps for ICN: Research, Applications, Deployment and Economics

Topics of papers, posters, and demos include:
- Architecture design and evaluation
- Comparison of ICN architecture proposals
- Limits and limitations of ICN architectures
- ICN evaluation methodology and metrics
- Evaluation of ICN benefits
- Analysis of scalability issues in ICN
- ICN enabled applications
- Routing in ICN networks
- Mobility support
- Trust management
- Access control mechanisms
- ICN economics and business models
- Tools and experimentation facilities
- Measurement methodologies
- Experience from implementations and experiments
- Specific scenarios and implementation approaches
- Feasibility studies for high speed networking
- Privacy
- ICN Deployment
- ICN APIs

Check out the program.

The IRTF Information-Centric Networking Research Group (ICNRG) had another ICN research fest with two meetings this week in Prague where IETF-93 is taking place.

ICN is an approach to evolve the Internet infrastructure to directly support information distribution 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. This enables the design of more robust, secure and better performing networked systems.

This week, more than 100 researchers got together to discuss recent advances in protocol development, performance optimizations, user privacy and new use cases.

One of the protocols that are developed in ICNRG is CCNx, a network protocol that provides requests (Interests) for named data and Content Object responses. The protocol semantics are specified in draft-irtf-icnrg-ccnxsemantics, and the protocol format is specified in draft-irtf-icnrg-ccnxmessages. The ICN community is currently discussing several extensions to the protocol, including support for "manifest" objects, which would facilitate the distribution of larger, chunked objects and add additional performance and flexibility to ICN systems.

Another highlight of the meeting was a presentation by Iannis Psaras from UCL on Solving the Congestion Problem using ICNPrinciples, an approach that is using Resource Pooling as a tool to manage uncertainty in congestion management.

Vasilis Sourlas (UCL) presented Information Resilience through User-Assisted Caching in Disruptive Content-Centric Networks. The corresponding paper won the IFIP 2015 best paper award and describes work from the GreenICN project. The approach relies on a modified NDN router design that features a “Satisfied Interest Table” (SIT) that enables user-assisted caching.

Bengt Ahlgren (SICS) presented on the Applicability and Tradeoffs of ICN for Efficient IoT (draft-lindgren-icnrg-efficientiot). This document outlines the tradeoffs involved in utilizing Information Centric Networking (ICN) for the Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios. It describes the contexts and applications where the IoT would benefit from ICN, and where a host-centric approach would be better. The requirements imposed by the heterogeneous nature of IoT networks are discussed (e.g., in terms of connectivity, power availability, computational and storage capacity). Design choices are then proposed for an IoT architecture to handle these requirements, while providing efficiency and scalability. An objective is to not require any IoT specific changes of the ICN architecture per se, but we do indicate some potential modifications of ICN that would improve efficiency and scalability for IoT and other applications.

Dirk Trossen (Inter Digital) presented IPoverICN – the Better IP?, a presentation of the EU-H2020 POINT project that is developing an IP over ICN system. The hypothesis of this project is that IPoverICN has the potential to run IP services better than in standard IP networks.

Mark Stapp (Cisco) presented on Private Communication in ICN. This presentation asks the question whether ICN needs better privacy protection to achieve parity with IP for user privacy in the presence of ubiquitous encryption. The discussion initiated an intensive discussion on privacy requirements for ICN that will continue in upcoming meetings.

Jan Seedorf (NEC) presented on Using ICN in Disaster Scenarios (draft-seedorf-icn-disaster/). This is a presentation of the GreenICN project and summarized some research challenges for coping with natural or human-generated, large-scale disasters. Further, the document discusses potential directions for applying Information Centric Networking (ICN) to address these challenges.

All presentations and detailed notes can be found at the ICNRG Wiki.

This summer will host a series of additional ICN events:

ACM SIGCOMM ICN 2015 Conference in San Francisco (September 30 -- October 2)

NDN Community meeting at UCLA (September 28 -- 29)

ICNRG Interim Meeting in Palo Alto (October 3)

I presented GreenICN work on Scalable Content Exchange in Challenged ICNs at CCNxCon-2015 this week.

Download: ccnxcon2015-kutscher.pdf

Abstract:
The principles of Information­Centric Networking (ICN), accessing data objects by name (not by location address), securing data objects (not connections), in­network caching (for sharing, repair, rate adaptation) make ICN attractive for a wide range of application scenarios beyond traditional data center or telco access network scenarios. In fact, one of the first instantiation of ICN had been developed based on Delay­Tolerant Networking (DTN) technologies.

Currently, ICN/DTN is considered a promising approach for enabling/enhancing communication in disaster scenarios. In such scenarios, so­called ICN data mules (that carry and disseminate data times) may move randomly, and each time data mules encounter one another exchange data items. We envision that in such a scenario where there is no connectivity, data mules (e.g. vehicles or drones) can move around randomly. So these mobile routers interact with end users, working base stations and other data mules to fetch and deliver the data and queries. Thus, we do not consider adhoc networks where you can build a path to the destination reactively or proactively, rather a DTN like scenario.

Consider a large scale disaster scenario like the earthquake in Japan in 2011 , where people in different parts of the city are stranded without the internet connectivity. But there are some zones, where base stations are still working and providing connectivity. Essentially, the scenario is such that ICN data mule move randomly across a geographic area, and when meeting end­users receive interests from them and also forward corresponding data items to end­users (if present in the content store / cache of the data mule). At the same time, when data mules encounter each other, they forward to each other certain end­user interest and/or data items (according to a predefined rule set and algorithm), such that interests and data items can be forwarded in a hop­by­hop DTN fashion. One research problem in such a scenario is how to optimize such data exchanges among data mules for optimal data dissemination (e.g. optimizing how many desired messages reach their recipients within a given timeframe with a given forwarding strategy, assuming that data mules only have limited time at each encounter to exchange
messages).

 

The ICN Research Group of the IRTF has met for a two day meeting in Cambridge, MA on January 13/14. More than 30 researchers from the US, Europe, China, and Japan gathered to discuss hot research topics in ICN such as:

• Native ICN-based video streaming
• Security (authenticated denial in ICN)
• IoT and ICN
• Hop-by-hop control messages in CCN
• Named Function Networking

In addition, different groups presented updates on their current implementations and their design decisions for packet formats and ICN protocols. For CCN-based protocols further steps towards a common format have been made.

• Complete Agenda
• Presentation Material

The next meeting (planned for the week of March 23rd in Dallas, at IETF-92) will continue the packet format discussion and progress new topics such as Named Function Networking.

 

The Call for Papers for the 2nd ACM Conference on ICN is out:

 

                         Call for Papers

** 2nd ACM Conference on Information-Centric Networking (ICN 2015) **

 

Sponsored by ACM and ACM SIGCOMM

 

http://conferences.sigcomm.org/acm-icn/2015

 

San Francisco, USA, September 30 - October 2, 2015

 

 

Information Centric Networking (ICN) is a new network architecture intended to provide access to information without requiring an explicit binding of that information to a particular location. By directly addressing information, ICN supports mobile users and mobile networked devices, offers a higher-level communication service to applications, and promotes authentication and efficiency in the transmission and dissemination of information. Over the last few years, a global research and development community has grown around the idea of ICN.

 

ACM ICN 2015 is the second edition of the ACM Conference on Information-Centric Networking, which follows a series of workshops on ICN held in conjunction with the ACM Sigcomm conference.  ACM ICN 2015 is the premier international forum for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, experiences, and challenges in information centric networking.  ACM ICN 2015 will be a single-track conference featuring paper and poster presentations, panel discussions, and demonstrations.

 

The Technical Program Committee of ACM ICN 2015 invites high-quality submissions describing unpublished research results in all aspects of ICN, with particular emphasis on contributions to architectural designs and reproducible experimental evaluations.  Papers submitted for consideration should not have been already published elsewhere and should not be under review or submitted for review elsewhere during the consideration period.

Specifically, authors are required to adhere to the ACM Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism

(http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism_policy) and the ACM Policy on Prior Publication and Simultaneous Submissions (http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/sim_submissions).

 

Topics of interest include:

 

* Architecture design and evaluation

* Comparison of different ICN architectures

* Interoperability across ICN architectures

* ICN evaluation methodology and metrics

* Analysis of scalability issues in ICN

* ICN enabled applications

* Routing in ICN

* Transport issues in ICN

* Caching

* Mobility support

* Trust management and access control

* Management in ICN

* ICN economics and business models

* Tools, experimentation facilities, and measurement methodology for ICN

* Experience from implementation

* Feasibility studies of ICN for high speed networking

* Privacy

* ICN Deployment

* ICN APIs

 

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Submission Instructions

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Submitted papers can be up to 10 pages in length following the SIGCOMM format. All submissions must be in English and in PDF format. Submissions that do not comply with these instructions will be rejected without review.

Papers must be submitted electronically through the ICN 2015 submission site.

 

Submissions will be reviewed and evaluated on the basis of originality, importance of contribution, soundness, evaluation, quality of presentation and appropriate comparison to related work. The program committee as a whole will make final decisions about which submissions to accept for presentation at the conference. The program committee may propose that authors present their work with a poster accompanied by a 2-page extended abstract. ACM ICN 2015 also invites proposals for demos, tutorials and panel sessions.

 

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Important Dates

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Full Paper Submission: May 22, 2015

Acceptance Notification: July 20, 2015

Camera Ready Due: Aug. 15, 2015

Conference: September 30 - October 2, 2015

 

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Conference General Chairs

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- Nacho (Ignacio) Solis (PARC, USA)

 

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Technical Program Committee Chairs

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- Antonio Carzaniga (USI, Switzerland)

- K. K. Ramakrishnan (UC Riverside, USA)

 

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Technical Program Committee Members

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- Mayutan Arumaithurai (University of Goettingen, Germany)

- Giuseppe Bianchi (University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Italy)

- Nicola Blefari-Melazzi (University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Italy)

- Jeff Burke (UCLA, USA)

- Kenneth Calvert (University of Kentuky, USA)

- Giovanna Carofiglio (Cisco)

- Patrick Crowley (Washington University, USA)

- Christian Esteve Rothenberg (UNICAMP, Brazil)

- JJ Garcia-Luna-Aceves (University of California Santa Cruz, USA)

- Toru Hasegawa (Osaka University, Japan)

- Jussi Kangasharju (University of Helsinki, Finland)

- Satyajayant Misra (New Mexico State University, USA)

- Vishal Misra (Columbia University, USA)

- Luca Muscariello (Orange Labs, France)

- Kiran Nagaraja (Ericsson)

- Dave Oran (Cisco, USA)

- Jörg Ott (Aalto University, Finland)

- Christos Papadopoulos (Colorado State University, USA)

- Craig Partridge (BBN, USA)

- Diego Perino (Alcatel Lucent, France)

- George Polyzos (AUEB, Greece)

- Yiannis Psaras (UCL, UK)

- Dipankar Raychaudhuri (Rutgers University, USA)

- Jim Roberts (IRT SystemX, France)

- Dario Rossi (Telecom ParisTech, France)

- Thomas Schmidt (HAW Hamburg, Germany)

- Jan Seedorf (NEC Labs Europe)

- Nacho (Ignacio) Solis (PARC, USA)

- Karen Sollins (MIT, USA)

- Christian Tschudin (Uni Basel, Switzerland)

- Arun Venkataramani (UMass, USA)

- Matthias Wählisch (FU Berlin, Germany)

- Roy Yates (Rutgers University, USA)

- Lixia Zhang (UCLA, USA)

 

 

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More Details

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Please see http://conferences.sigcomm.org/acm-icn/2015

 

One of the papers recenty presented at ICN-2014 described an interesting IoT implementation and corresponding experiment with CCN-Lite on the RIOT platform.

Previously, ICN has been perceived as providing conceptual benefits such as

• simplified, natural APIs to developers;
• increased robustness through caching;
• facilitating data fusion through hop-by-hop replication;
• reduced network stack layering; and
• inherent auto-configuration.

The authors describe their implementation of CCN-Lite on RIOT and their approach to realize IoT communication in a 60 node testbed. The idea is to apply Reactive Optimistic Name-based Routing (RONR), i.e., an ICN name-based forwarding approach to send requests for named information in an IoT network using a hybrid flooding/unicast approach.

Some results of their comparison:

• 70% less ROM, 80% less RAM usage by the stack implementation (compared to a RPL/6lowpan implementation);
• 50% reduction of transmitted packets thanks to RONR and ICN caching.

Some pointers for further reading:

•  Emmanuel Baccelli, Christian Mehlis, Oliver Hahm, Thomas C. Schmidt, Matthias Wählisch; Information Centric Networking in the IoT: Experiments with NDN in the Wild; ACM ICN-2014; September 2014; [paper], [presentation]
• CCN-Lite
• RIOT -- the friendly OS for the IoT
• ACM SIGCOMM ICN-2014

We are running a conference on ICN in September 2014!

Some dates of interest:

• May 30, 2014: Paper Submission Deadline
• July 1, 2014: Tutorial and Panel Proposal Deadline
• September 24-26, 2014: Conference

More information: http://conferences2.sigcomm.org/acm-icn/2014/index.php

URIs [RFC3986] are used in various protocols for identifying resources. In many deployments those URIs contain strings that are hash function outputs in order to ensure uniqueness in terms of mapping the URI to a specific resource, or to make URIs hard to guess for security reasons. However, there is no standard way to interpret those strings and so today in general only the creator of the URI knows how to use the hash function output.

In the context of information-centric networking and elsewhere there is value in being able to compare a presented resource against the URI that was de-referenced in order to access that resource. If a cryptographically-strong comparison function can be used then this allows for many forms of in-network storage, without requiring as much trust in the infrastructure used to present the resource. The outputs of hash functions can be used in this manner, if presented in a standard way. There are also many other potential uses for these hash outputs, for example, in terms of binding the URI to an owner via signatures and public keys, mapping between names, handling versioning etc. Many such uses can be based on "wrapping" the object with meta-data, e.g. including signatures, public key certificates etc.

We therefore define the "ni" URI scheme that allows for, but does not insist upon, checking of the integrity of the URI/resource mapping.

The "ni" URI scheme is specified in draft-farrell-ni-00

The Internet is already made of things. However, we expect there
to be many more less-capable things, such as sensors and
actuators, connected to the Internet in years to come. In
parallel, Internet applications are more and more being used to
perform operations on named (information) objects, and various
Information-Centric Networking (ICN) approaches are being
researched in order to allow such applications to work
effectively at scale and with various forms of mobility and in
networking environments that are more challenging than a
traditional access network and data center. In a recent position
paper, we outline some benefits that may accrue, and issues that
arise, should the Internet, with many more things, make use of
the ICN approach to networking and we argue that ICN concepts
should be considered when planning for increases in the number of
things connected to the Internet.

Venue: Interconnecting Smart Objects with the Internet Workshop Prague, Friday, 25th March 2011
Paper: http://www.iab.org/about/workshops/smartobjects/papers/Kutscher.pdf
Presentation: http://www.iab.org/about/workshops/smartobjects/slides/Kutscher.pdf

Following up on the December 2010 Dagstuhl seminar on ICN, we have set up a mailing for general ICN-related discussion. If you are interested to join, please sign up here.