REMAP researchers are contributing to the ongoing work of the Named Data Networking project (NDN). A multiple-institution collaboration supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the leadership of UCLA Computer Science and PARC, NDN is a new Internet architecture transitioning from the host-based addressing of IP to addressing based on data names. REMAP’s Jeff Burke is Co-Principal Investigator and Application Team Lead for the project overall. Dr. Lixia Zhang (UCLA Computer Science and Internet Research Lab) is Lead PI.
As part of NSF’s Future Internet Architecture program, and one of several efforts in the area of information-centric networking (ICN) or content-centric networking (CCN), NDN is simplifying application programming. By enabling addressing to match application semantics more closely, it provides bandwidth performance enhancement (by using router memory for content caching), and offers intrinsic security building blocks such as per-packet cryptographic signatures that bind specific content to names.
While the Internet has exceeded expectations, it has stretched initial assumptions, creating tussles with its underlying communication model. Users and applications operate in terms of content, making it increasingly difficult to conform to IP’s requirement of discovering and specifying location. A conceptually simple yet transformational architectural shift is required, from today’s focus on where (addresses and hosts) to what (content users and applications care about).
Of particular interest to REMAP is the impact of NDN’s development on applications that are both functional and expressive—for instrumented environments, participatory sensing, and media distribution. REMAP researchers have been engaged with live and prerecorded video streaming, authenticated lighting control, peer-to-peer gaming, and peer-to-peer file syncing—all over NDN—as well as a JavaScript library for NDN.
REMAP also contributes to NDN Hackathons and other events, and hosted the first NDNcomm in 2014.
In addition to UCLA, the founding university members of the NDN consortium include: Colorado State University; University of Arizona; University of California, San Diego; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; University of Memphis; University of Michigan; and Washington University in St. Louis. A list of current academic, research and industry partners can be found here. The NDN testbed now includes software routers, application host nodes, and other devices at institutions throughout the world.
Supported by NSF Grant No. CNS-1040868.
2010-present.