ICN Research Group                                              A. Azgin
Internet-Draft                                              R. Ravindran
Intended status: Informational                       Huawei Technologies
Expires: January 18, 2018                                  July 17, 2017


  Enabling Network Identifier (NI) in Information Centric Networks to
                      Support Optimized Forwarding
                        draft-azgin-icnrg-ni-02

Abstract

   The objective of this proposal is to introduce the notion of network
   identifier (NI) in the ICN architecture.  This is in addition to the
   existing names (i.e., content identifiers, CIs, or application
   identifiers, AIs, in general) that are currently used for both naming
   and routing/forwarding purposes.  Network identifiers are needed
   considering the requirements on future networking architectures such
   as: (i) to support persistent names (or persistently named objects)
   and large-scale and high-speed mobility of any network entity (i.e,
   devices, services, and content), (ii) to accommodate different types
   of Internet of Things (IoT) services, many of which require low-
   latency performance, and enabling edge computing to support service
   virtualization, which will require support for large scale migration
   and replication of named resources, and (iii) to scale the ICN
   architecture to future Internet scale considering the exponentially
   increasing named entities.  If information on AI-to-NI mappings are
   not directly accessible to the consumers, for instance, using
   specific datasets like manifests, these considerations may require
   enabling a name resolution service, which can be network based or
   application driven, to support efficient and scalable routing.
   Current document do not impose any restrictions on the name
   resolution architecture, regarding its scope.

   In the current draft, we begin by highlighting the issues associated
   with ICN networking when utilizing only the AIs, which include
   persistently named content, services, and devices.  Next we discuss
   the function NI serves, and provide a discussion on the two current
   NI-based proposals, along with their scope and functionalities.  This
   is with the objective of having a single NI construct for ICN that is
   flexible enough to adapt to different networking contexts.

Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].




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Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on January 18, 2018.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Application Identifier (AI) vs. Network Identifier (NI) in
       ICN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  NI based ICN Forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.1.  Label based ICN forwarding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     3.2.  Link-object based ICN forwarding  . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     3.3.  Link Object vs. Forwarding Label  . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   4.  Name Resolution System Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   5.  Differences with respect to Existing IP-based Proposals . . .  13
   6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   Appendix A.  Additional Stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17



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1.  Introduction

   Information centric networking (ICN) is proposed as a future Internet
   architecture to evolve the current host-centric design of Internet
   towards a content-oriented one, where the named object becomes the
   principle entity in networking.  In doing so, contents, services, and
   devices become disentangled from any particular host (or hosts)
   allowing for efficient use of the distributed in-network caches and
   compute resources with more flexible and dynamic packet forwarding
   techniques.  ICN is expected to offer a scalable and secure
   networking solution to address many challenges of the current IP
   architecture.  Towards this, we propose to formalize the notion of
   network identifier (NI) in ICN protocol, that is separate from
   content name or application identifier (CI/AI, or simply AI) used to
   both name resources and route user requests.

2.  Application Identifier (AI) vs. Network Identifier (NI) in ICN

   AI represents the names of services, contents, or devices assigned by
   the application providers or device manufacturers, and which can be
   validated through appropriate security mechanisms.  AIs are
   specifically used for content request and distribution.  ICN should
   provide flexibility in accommodating a broad set of identifiers,
   within which the two well-known classes include hierarchical and flat
   identifiers.  While a hierarchical identifier provides contextual
   richness for the names, a self-certified flat identifier offers a
   fixed predictable overhead and context-based security features (as
   they can be hash of the content object or hash of the public key).
   Today, this identifier set is already in the order of billions (with
   hundreds of millions domain name registrations across all top-level
   domain names [VRSGN]).  As tens of billions of devices are expected
   to join the network, this identifier set will be further augmented
   with the corresponding data objects significantly expanding its size.
   To decouple applications from the underlying network dynamics,
   identifiers are expected to be persistent within the scope of the
   application and its deployment.

   NI provides a binding for the AI to the network, at a location and in
   a topology relevant manner.  In more specific cases, such as with
   anycast use of NIs or for multi-source-homing scenarios, binding can
   target a set of locations rather than a single location.  NI is
   managed by the network provider to name the routers, point of
   attachments, servers and end devices.  In addition to ICN names, in
   an overlay deployment, NI could assume names associated with the
   underlay network as well, such as IP or Ethernet addresses, in which
   case the NIs would be carried within the underlying protocol headers,
   potentially with further address translations occurring at the ICN-
   enabled routers, hosts, or devices.  The growth in the NI space is



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   proportional to the rate of growth in domain topology, the total
   number of AS(s), and the end points (if they are managed by the
   network), whereas the growth of the AI space is proportional to the
   rate of growth of the named resources within it.  Considering the
   potential use cases for ICN, the growth in AI space can be expected
   to be much faster than that of NI space.  Furthermore, as NI is a
   routing construct, which can be modified en-route using per-hop name
   resolution at the domain boundaries, the forwarding table sizes at
   the core routers can be limited to the number of AS(s) instead of the
   size for the set of end points.  Hence if the objective is to limit
   the size of the forwarding table and scale control plane, it is
   desirable to route requests on NIs, with the mapping between AI and
   NI is achieved in a scalable manner using one of many ways including
   but not limited to using a network based name resolution system or
   using a manifest-driven information database system to provide such
   mappings.

   Content-centric design used by ICN allows end hosts to make requests
   using any type of name supported by the applications, including
   hierarchical (human-readable or hash-based) identifiers (as
   considered by CCN, NDN[CCN] for both the client application use and
   the network use-for routing-), or fixed flat identifiers (as
   considered by MobilityFirst[MFRST] in the network for routing).  We
   refer to an ICN architecture that supports any application naming
   format (i.e., human-readable or flat) within the network for routing
   as a non-restricted ICN architecture (as in CCN/NDN), whereas an ICN
   architecture with a fixed naming format for routing within the
   network as a restricted ICN architecture (as in MobilityFirst).

   As packet forwarding in ICN utilizes names or identifiers (associated
   with contents, hosts, or services) which are typically managed by
   applications, thereby of 'mostly' persistent nature, using such names
   in packet forwarding introduces certain challenges in regards to
   routing scalability and forwarding efficiency [NAMES].  Depending on
   the application context, it is possible for an application to support
   the use of non-persistent names, for instance, in the case of real-
   time multimedia services, with further challenges towards achieving
   scalable routing and efficient forwarding.  We list the most critical
   challenges with respect to use of names in routing as follows.

   o  Using AI for Routing/Forwarding: Assigning dual functions to an
      application identifier to include using it as a locator may, in
      certain scenarios and depending on the ICN implementation, lead to
      unstable 'routing control and forwarding plane' operations,
      particularly when replication and mobility of content or end
      points are taken into consideration.  Specifically, if application
      identifiers are used in routing, we can express the update
      overhead to be proportional to the multiplication of update-reach



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      (i.e., the level of reachability of the update in terms of the
      number of routers that need to update their routing/forwarding
      tables), update-frequency, updated-object-count, which can easily
      reach unmanageable levels, with shift towards more mobile
      communications or higher level of content replication.

   o  Applications typically construct names and replicate contents or
      services to optimize their delivery without any consideration
      towards network scalability or efficiency.  Accordingly, name
      aggregation may not help with scaling the routing and forwarding
      as typically considered [RFC7927], and the cost of this would be
      quite significant in real world scenarios, as discussed in more
      detail in [NCMP].  Furthermore, it is also observed in [QCMP]
      that, in certain scenarios (such as content mobility), name-based
      forwarding approaches can operate more efficiently, if used in
      conjunction with address-assisted schemes such as DNS or anchor
      point based approaches like Mobile IP [RFC3220].  Additionally,
      when names are used for network reachability, more practical
      problems such as name-suffix hole may arise, as the content
      requests are forwarded towards non-existent caches [MDHT].

   o  Routing/Forwarding Scalability: Routing scalability is typically
      achieved by designing routing state with aggregate-able property,
      which is the case for the current IP architecture.  However,
      having such feature in a non-restricted ICN architecture would
      lead to relinquishing the persistency of the names, along with its
      security binding such as trust, as the names would involve a
      topological component for scalability, which can also suggest
      resources to be renamed depending on, for instance, network or
      business specs or characteristics.  Note that, routing on names
      with aggregate-able property would mean that names need to change
      as the location for name changes, for instance, with publisher/
      producer mobility.  As we assume that trust relationships are
      established based on names, changing names would mean updating
      security bindings accordingly, dynamically as requests are pushed
      towards the content source.

   o  When content names or application identifiers use a hierarchical
      identifier format, we observe scalability problems in control and
      data plane operations [SFWD].  Such problems are caused by various
      factors.  For instance, the explosive growth observed in
      namespaces can lead to a similar growth in routing/forwarding
      information base or table sizes [AFWD][SPIT][WPIT], even when
      namespace aggregation is enabled, to significantly limit the
      forwarding efficiency and forwarding capacity.  If ICN routing
      with hierarchical naming is the accepted form of naming, name-
      aggregation is highly unlikely to achieve any practical
      scalability.  This is because, naming ontology and assignment



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      typically consider application objectives of contextualizing
      names, service and content placement and replication to better
      suit the consumers' needs without considering any network
      objectives on control and data plane efficiency and scalability.

   o  Handling Mobility, Migration, and Replication: The impact of
      namespace expansion on routing/forwarding performance is typically
      exacerbated with content mobility, or the use of multi-homing and
      resource replication due to diminished aggregate-ability [NCMP].
      The authors in [QCMP] concludes that, as more than 20% of end
      hosts make more than 10 network address transitions every day,
      thereby suggesting that mobility should be considered as the norm
      rather than the exception.  Furthermore, to achieve location
      independent routing based on AIs, each mobility event associated
      with a device or a popular content may trigger updates on up to
      14% of Internet routers.

   For the above reasons, restructuring the identifier to directly or
   indirectly contain a globally routable component becomes an important
   requirement, especially, to handle mobility at the network layer for
   architectures that do not restrict names or identifiers to any
   specific format.  We can refer to such operation as the Application
   and Network identifier split (where the NI represents the globally
   routable component, and the AI represents the persistent name/
   identifier) which enables splitting of the namespace to support
   routable, persistent, and human-friendly names or identifiers.  In
   such a framework, names would be divided accordingly, i.e., based on
   application binding (offering persistent names) vs. advertised
   network entities (in routing plane) to provide a more scalable
   routing architecture.  For instance, a persistent name or identifier
   /Provider/Type/Name, which would be used to create secure content
   objects, can be published by multiple content distributors, where it
   would be mapped to different NIs, such as /Distributor/Region/Zone/
   Storage, to resolve content names or identifiers to specific
   infrastructure entities.  The fundamental requirements with this form
   of splitting is no different than that of MobilityFirst [MFRST] or
   LISP [RFC6830], which is the requirement of a network based name
   resolution system to map the two namespaces.

   So far, various approaches have been proposed to support the use of
   NI in ICN-based networking architectures, depending on how this
   information is structured and where it is placed within the Interest
   (which may also determine the structuring of Data packets).  Next, we
   discuss these solutions by specifically focusing on label-based ICN
   forwarding [FWLDR][FWLRP][MAAS] and ICN-based Map-and-Encap
   [MPNCP][SNAMP]  to provide a general guidance on the use of NI in
   information centric networks.




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3.  NI based ICN Forwarding

   AI based routing is a feasible solution within certain contexts such
   as: (i) when resources are static and routing is limited to local
   area networks or local domains, such as access networks within the
   scalability considerations of the control and forwarding plane; (ii)
   in ad hoc situations where AI can be combined with suitable suffix
   filters to seek content of interest for the applications; (iii) in
   infrastructure-less scenarios with limited scalability requirements.

   On the other hand, the use of NI becomes important in the following
   situations: (i) when the Interest packet goes outside the local
   domain, where routing on AI is optionally supported (i.e., as routing
   scalability and efficiency seeks precedence, forwarders can choose to
   exclude certain AIs from FIB processing, which may limit the
   forwarding of requests carrying such AIs); (ii) when the Interest
   enters a local domain, and the domain has specific knowledge of an NI
   associated with the resource inside its domain (as the use of NIs
   would address routing efficiency through exact matching on the NI
   rather than performing longest prefix matching on AIs).  The first
   situation can limit routability of requests if information on how to
   reach an AI is not carried in all domains, whereas the second
   situation, for various reasons, can help with efficient forwarding of
   requests by routing on NIs rather than on AIs even though it is
   supported (e.g., NI lookup may be performed on a more performance
   efficient state table using exact match rather than longest prefix
   matching).

   With the above considerations, with respect to end-to-end networking,
   using NI for routing is not a mandatory feature, but an optional one.
   However, as significant amount of user traffic fetches resources
   outside the requesting host's local domain, it becomes crucial to
   provide architectural support for routing on NIs in an ICN protocol.
   Here, we consider NI as an implemented feature for communication
   among static network components (e.g., as router identifiers) or
   cross domains (e.g., as domain identifiers or global identifiers),
   and can be designed using locally or globally defined policies, which
   for the latter case may require globally agreed semantics for trust
   management to validate bindings between NIs and AIs.

   So far, two solutions for NI in ICN, overall with the same objectives
   but serving different purposes, have been proposed.  These include
   the forwarding-label proposal [FWLDR] and the Link Object described
   in [SNAMP].  We next summarize these proposals and discuss their
   differences.






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3.1.  Label based ICN forwarding

   Label-based ICN forwarding provides NI capability by encoding a
   network address along with (optional) security binding attributes
   within an Interest packet to guide it towards a content source (which
   can be the Producer, a content repository or a cache).  We refer to
   this label that provide the NI capability as the forwarding label
   [FWLDR], which can be offered as part of an ICN network service (such
   as a name resolution service with ICN APIs to register and resolve
   names).  Security binding attributes are considered optional for
   forwarding labels as their scope can be limited to use within a
   domain, and within the boundaries of a domain, with an established
   trust among forwarding hosts (i.e., network routers) such bindings
   may not be needed.  On the other hand, to ensure cross-domain
   validity of forwarding labels, in the absence of prior established
   trust relationships, security binding attributes are considered as
   mandatory, and enforced at domain boundaries to ensure that end-to-
   end NI-based packet forwarding is supported.  There may be exceptions
   to the above scenarios depending on how the NIs are utilized and
   updated.

   For the forwarding label, we have the following important
   considerations: (i) forwarding label, if present in the Interest
   packet, takes precedence (over AI) for routing to ensure consistency
   in packet forwarding whenever its used is triggered (for instance, to
   avoid the emergence of loops which can occur as a consequence of
   alternating between routing on AIs and routing on forwarding labels),
   (ii) forwarding label is mutable in the sense that it can be swapped
   or removed by intermediate network elements in the network based on
   routing considerations within its domain.  Note that, to ensure
   compatibility with future potential use cases, label based ICN
   forwarding can also utilize dynamic precedence, for instance to
   prevent routers from unnecessarily dropping requests.  Here,
   forwarding labels are not limited to only the ICN names, but, in an
   overlay mode, they can also represent names from other transport
   layers as well, for instance, an IP address or a MAC address.

   Forwarding label consists of multiple components, one of which is the
   NI that represents the locator information.  If the AI namespace
   supports the use of an NI to reach a specific destination, forwarding
   label is embedded within the Interest message at the edge router or
   the end point within certain trust considerations.  For security
   reasons, edge routers can validate the label, which is inserted by
   the end hosts, based on the trust context.  For instance, if the
   inserted label cannot be validated, edge router can ignore the label
   inserted by the end-host and swap it with a new one depending on the
   feedback from the name resolution system; or if forwarding on labels
   is not supported, edge router can ignore any such label inserted by



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   an ICN forwarder at the end hosts, by simply removing the inserted
   label.  Such an approach requires no trust relationship among
   different domains, as each domain is capable of resolving content
   namespace to a target domain, and swapping the received label with
   one to which its resolves.

   Forwarding label support for a namespace can be offered at a global
   scale (i.e., supported by all the domains) or a local scale
   (supported by a subset of the existing domains).  For instance, some
   autonomous systems can prioritize forwarding solely based on the
   content names (or offer limited support for label-based forwarding on
   specific namespaces).  In such case, forwarding labels can include
   additional service tag (or information on the associated service, for
   which the use of forwarding label might be supported in certain
   domains, such as towards mobility service) for routing packets on the
   supported domains.  In doing so, we can strategically forward
   requests over domains that support such service to provide more
   deterministic service guarantees.

   If forwarding label use is supported (or permitted) within a domain,
   by default, forwarding label is given preference over content
   identifiers for packet forwarding.  In such case, to maximize the
   forwarding efficiency, additional mapping tables can be implemented
   at the edge or border ICN routers for quick longest-prefix matching
   (LPM) lookup on content names to determine a (or the) matching
   forwarding label(s), which can then be used by the router to perform
   LPM lookup on the FIB.  As forwarding label typically represents a
   target domain or router, a single LPM lookup on the FIB may suffice
   to find the outgoing interface for the received Interest.  This state
   can also be software-defined based on application requirements using
   an SDN based control plane.

3.2.  Link-object based ICN forwarding

   ICN-based Map-and-Encap [SNAMP] utilizes link objects, which include
   information on how to retrieve content objects.  For instance, link
   objects can represent domains that host the content object, or
   direction towards which the requests need to be forwarded to find a
   matching content object.  Link objects consist of two optional
   headers: (i) a link header, which includes the potential directives
   that can be used for forwarding and is signed by the Producer to
   validate its authenticity during forwarding, and (ii) a delegation
   header, which is used to represent the link choice utilized by the
   previous forwarder.  Since delegations may change at consecutive hops
   depending on the view of forwarders' network state and forwarding
   strategy, delegation header represents a variable component that can
   be altered during packet forwarding.




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   The role of link objects is mainly for guidance, to provide global
   routing support on locally defined or routable content identifiers.
   Hence, if link objects are implemented, they are consulted by the ICN
   enabled routers only when forwarding lookup on content identifiers
   returns no match on the forwarding information base.

3.3.  Link Object vs. Forwarding Label

   Next we list the major differences between a link object and a
   forwarding label.

   o  Link objects are set by the end host's forwarding daemon with
      certain level of trust associated to it, restricting the link
      component to be immutable during forwarding.  Forwarding labels
      are initially set by the ICN edge routers or the end-host
      applications and allow mutable operation through late-binding
      during Interest forwarding.  In doing so, forwarding label offers
      the ability of network based management during Interest
      forwarding, which allows each domain to perform packet forwarding
      according to its administrative and service policies.  Note that,
      it is possible for link objects to trigger network based
      management operations, however their impact would be limited, in
      the worst case triggering NACKs that may prevent the use of link
      objects to help with forwarding.

   o  Link objects constrain a network operator from overriding a
      consumer's intent, which, in some cases, may potentially lead to
      better performance compared to forwarding over native network
      service provider paths.  Forwarding labels require additional
      mechanisms to support such feature, for instance, to enable the
      desired path for the consumer, which may necessitate the use of
      additional forwarding labels within requests.

   o  For the link objects, security binding is mandatory and trust
      relationship is established by default, by putting all the trust
      assessment at the end hosts.  On the other hand, security binding
      is optional for the forwarding label, which allows the use of
      trust association to bind AI to the NI depending on the context
      associated with its use.  However, without appropriate support in
      trust management, forwarding label use may introduce problems such
      as route hijacking, hence contextual management should be capable
      of addressing such challenges using, for instance, approaches
      identified in [FWLDR].

   o  Another difference is related to the processing of forwarding
      labels and link objects at the ICN routers.  A link object is
      processed only if the router cannot find a matching FIB entry for
      the content identifier limiting routing flexibility.  Furthermore,



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      if no matching FIB entry is found, link objects would trigger
      additional lookups on the FIB, leading to efficiency issues with
      frequent occurrences.  On the other hand, forwarding label is
      processed before a content identifier, if its use is enabled,
      hence presents a more flexible and efficient operation in routing.

   o  Link object can be considered as a hint towards where to find the
      content, and since it is processed after FIB lookup on the content
      identifier fails, it typically leads to lower computational and
      bandwidth efficiency.  Forwarding label, on the other hand, can be
      considered as an enabler for faster packet processing at the ICN
      routers as it allows bypassing content/application identifier
      based processing at the supported routers, while at the same
      offering optimized routing towards a content source.

   o  Link object is considered as an application driven component and
      network service agnostic, thereby allowing the network to decide
      on its use.  Forwarding label, on the other hand, can be enabled
      as part of a service, which limits the use of forwarding label to
      the supported namespaces, while at the same time requiring its use
      whenever/wherever supported.  For instance, within the context of
      virtualizing the ICN network among multiple services, where
      compute, storage, and bandwidth resources are shared among these
      services, ICN service edge routers can apply rules on namespaces
      to decide on how to dedicate network resources.  One example of
      such service is the mobility service, which can utilize forwarding
      labels, to provide stricter service quality guarantees for the end
      hosts.  In such case, if the namespace requires mobility support,
      forwarding label is used in effect to achieve more efficient
      forwarding.  Note that, service use can be triggered with the use
      of service tags integrated within forwarding labels, once
      validated to be used with the corresponding namespace(s).

   o  As a link object can encode multiple routing hints, it can direct
      a request towards multiple identifier locations, giving an ICN
      router the option to choose any one of them based on the router's
      forwarding strategy.  Even though this selection is shared between
      consecutive routers, it is not enforced, thereby potentially
      leading to non-optimal forwarding paths.  Forwarding label, on the
      other hand, is enforced consistently at consecutive hops within a
      domain whenever/wherever its use is supported and/or enabled.
      Hence, forwarding label presents the network with the ability to
      consistently forward packets over optimal paths towards a content
      source (with respect to routers forwarding the requests towards
      the same direction, rather than choosing alternating
      destinations).





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4.  Name Resolution System Considerations

   To manage the AI to NI mapping, we need a name resolution system
   (NRS).  In addition to exposing APIs to application to register its
   name to the NRS, it should also scale and work efficiently
   considering the scale of named resources that need to be published,
   resolved, removed, and updated at high frequency, for instance,
   corresponding to high-speed mobility scenarios.

   The following are the design choices for the NRS:

   o  Hierarchical System: Here, AI to NI mapping is managed by the
      application providers, but similar to DNS, the service has to sync
      its name reachability information with high level name resolvers.
      NDN-DNS (NDNS) is an example of such a system [NDNS], which
      utilizes a zone-based hierarchy (i.e., root level, top-level
      domain, etc.) and which is queried iteratively at every component
      level of the content/application identifier (e.g., /tld/sld would
      trigger iterative requests of /dns/tld/NS and /dns/sld/NS, at the
      root and tld levels).  NDNS also supports recursive queries to
      scope the route requests for a content/application identifier.
      Even though the design of NDNS supports forwarding of Interests on
      content/application identifiers not present in the FIB, its design
      is typically suitable in cases when resources are static, rather
      than for highly dynamic systems such as ICN, where replication and
      mobility will be the norm.  Supporting mobility in NDNS may
      require frequent updates and requests to setup and identify routes
      towards mobile entities, which may lead to performance-related
      problems.  Also, such system has to scale to resolve not just the
      end hosts, which represents the current use, but also the
      information objects.

   o  Network-Integrated Flat System: Here, resolution service is
      integrated within the ICN infrastructure, where the router
      contributes a part of its compute and storage resources to enable
      this service.  This integration allows multiple ways of designing
      a generic name resolution service, similar to the overlaid or in-
      network designs considered for Global Name Resolution Service
      (GNRS) in MobilityFirst [GNS] [ASPC] [GNRS] allowing for good
      scalability performance with proven handling of dynamic updates,
      aided by a separation of entity identifiers from network
      identifiers.  In GNRS, flat names are queried to obtain the
      corresponding self-certifying identifiers, such as the network
      address, before forwarding an Interest for the flat globally-
      unique identifier.

   o  Distributed System: Compared to a flat resolution system, this
      type of architecture preserves the contextual nature of DNS, by



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      using the context in the content identifier (such as the network
      or host identifier portion of the name) to identify a resolution
      server corresponding to the context information, such as home
      controller, which stores the mappings associated with registered
      names carrying the controller's context information and where the
      respective AI to NI mapping can be resolved.  Such a system
      removes the need for the home controllers to sync up with high
      level resolvers, as for successful resolution it is sufficient for
      each controller to manage the names registered to or under it.
      For instance, /company/content-id would be mapped with a local
      resolver, identified with /company/resolver-id, that manages any
      namespace registered under its domain identifier (/company).  In
      doing so, content mobility can effectively be handled through
      localized updates (for intra-domain mobility) or remote updates at
      the home controller (for inter-domain mobility) with minimal
      signaling overhead, while maintaining global scalability.

5.  Differences with respect to Existing IP-based Proposals

   To address persistent identity, routing scalability, multihoming, and
   mobility limitations of the current IP, various incremental solutions
   have been proposed, among which identifier/locator split emerged as
   the key solution to address these challenges [RFC4984].  Here, we
   specifically focus on three of these solutions: (i) Host Identity
   Protocol (HIP) [HIP], (ii) Identifier-Locator Network Protocol (ILNP)
   [ILNP], and Locator/Identifier Seperation Protocol (LISP) [RFC6830].
   HIP and ILNP achieve ID/locator separation and binding at the host
   level whereas LISP achieves that at the network level (i.e., at the
   network edge using service routers).

   In HIP, public cryptographic keys are used as host identifiers, which
   provide the binding to higher layer protocols instead of IP addresses
   [RFC7401].  ILNP divides IP namespace into two distinct namespaces of
   identifiers and locators, each of which carrying distinct semantics
   with identifier representing the non-topological name for the host
   and locator representing the topologically bound name for the network
   [RFC6740].  LISP is a map-and-encap type protocol, which achieves id/
   locator separation by defining (i) endpoint identifiers, which are
   used for routing at the access network and which represent the IP
   address for the host, and (ii) routing locators, which are used for
   routing at the core and which represent the IP address for the egress
   routers.

   These protocols fundamentally differ from ICN's objective to define a
   new network layer, where name based routing, location independent
   caching, mobility, multihoming, and multi-path routing are the
   integral features.  More specifically, this draft proposes to enable




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   AI/NI binding as a network service to allow efficient routing of user
   requests depending on the application context.

6.  References

6.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

6.2.  Informative References

   [AFWD]     Yi, C., Afanasyev, A., Wang, L., Zhang, B., and L. Zhang,
              "Adaptive Forwarding in Named Data Networking", ACM CCR,
              Jul 2012.

   [ASPC]     Sharma, A., Tie, X., Uppal, H., Venkataramani, A.,
              Westbrook, D., and A. Yadav, "A Global Name Service for a
              Highly Mobile Internetwork", ACM SIGGCOM, 2014.

   [CCN]      Jacobson, V., Smetters, D., Thornton, J., Plass, M.,
              Briggs, N., and R. Braynard, "Networking Named Content",
              ACM CoNEXT, 2009.

   [FWLDR]    Ravindran, R., Chakraborti, A., and A. Azgin, "Forwarding
              Label Support in CCN Protocol", draft-ravi-icnrg-ccn-
              forwarding-label-01, July, 2017.

   [FWLRP]    Azgin, A., Ravindran, R., and G. Wang, "A Scalable
              Mobility-Centric Architecture for Named Data Networking",
              IEEE ICCCN Scene Workshop, 2014.

   [GNRS]     Hu, Y., Yates, R., and D. Raychaudhuri, "A Hierarchically
              Aggregated In-Network Global Name Resolution Service for
              the Mobile Internet".

   [GNS]      Venkataramani, A., Sharma, A., Tie, X., Uppal, H.,
              Westbrook, D., Kurose, J., and D. Raychaudhuri, "Design
              Requirements for a Global Name Service for a Mobility-
              Centric, Trustworthy Internetwork", IEEE COMSNETS, 2013.

   [HIP]      Nikander, P., Gurtov, A., and T. Henderson, "Host identity
              protocol (HIP): Connectivity, mobility, multi-homing,
              security, and privacy over IPv4 and IPv6 networks", IEEE
              Communications Surveys and Tutorials, pp: 186-204, 2010.




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   [ILNP]     Atkinson, R., "An Overview of the Identifier-Locator
              Network Protocol (ILNP)", Technical Report, University
              College London, 2005.

   [MAAS]     Azgin, A., Ravindran, R., Chakraborti, A., and G. Wang,
              "Seamless Producer Mobility as a Service in Information
              Centric Networks", ACM ICN IC5G Workshop, 2016.

   [MDHT]     Liu, H., Foy, X., and D. Zhang, "A Multi-level DHT routing
              Framework with Aggregation", ACM SIGCOMM ICN Workshop,
              2012.

   [MFRST]    Venkataramani, A., Kurose, J., Raychaudhuri, D., Nagaraja,
              K., Mao, M., and S. Banerjee, "MobilityFirst: A Mobility-
              centric and Trustworthy Internet Architecture", ACM
              SIGCOMM CCR, 2014.

   [MPNCP]    Afanasyev, A., Yi, C., Wang, L., Zhang, B., and L. Zhang,
              "Map-and-Encap for Scaling NDN Routing", NDN Technical
              Report, ndn-004-02, 2015.

   [NAMES]    Baid, A., Vu, T., and D. Raychaudhuri, "Comparing
              Alternative Approaches for Networking of Named Objects in
              the Future Internet", IEEE INFOCOM NOMEN Workshop, 2012.

   [NCMP]     Adhatarao, S., Chen, J., Arumaithurai, M., Fu, X., and K.
              Ramakrishnan, "Comparison of Naming Schema in ICN", IEEE
              LANMAN, 2016.

   [NDNS]     Afanasyev, A., "Addressing Operational Challenges in Named
              Data Networking Through NDNS Distributed Database", 2013.

   [QCMP]     Gao, Z., Venkataramani, A., Kurose, J., and S. Heimlicher,
              "Towards a Quantitative Comparison of Location-Independent
              Network Architectures", ACM SIGCOMM, 2014.

   [RFC2629]  Rose, M., "Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML", RFC 2629,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2629, June 1999,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2629>.

   [RFC3220]  Perkins, C., "IP Mobility Support for IPv4", RFC 3220,
              2002.

   [RFC3552]  Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
              Text on Security Considerations", BCP 72, RFC 3552,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3552, July 2003,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3552>.




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   [RFC4984]  Meyer, D., Zhang, L., and K. Fall, "Report from the IAB
              Workshop on Routing and Addressing", RFC 4984, 2007.

   [RFC5226]  Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
              IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", RFC 5226,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5226, May 2008,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5226>.

   [RFC6740]  Atkinson, R. and S. Bhatti, "Identifier-Locator Network
              Protocol (ILNP) Architectural Description", RFC 6740,
              2012.

   [RFC6830]  Farinacci, D., Fuller, V., Meyer, D., and D. Lewis, "The
              Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP)", RFC 6830, 2013.

   [RFC7401]  Moskowitz, R., Heer, T., Jokela, P., and T. Henderson,
              "Host Identity Protocol Version 2 (HIPv2)", RFC 7401,
              2015.

   [RFC7927]  Kutscher, D., Eum, S., Pentikousis, K., Psaras, I.,
              Corujo, D., Saucez, D., Schmidt, T., and M. Waehlisc,
              "Information-Centric Networking (ICN) Research
              Challenges", RFC 7927, 2016.

   [SFWD]     Yuan, H., Song, T., and P. Crowley, "Scalable NDN
              Forwarding: Concepts, Issues and Principles", IEEE ICCCN,
              2012.

   [SNAMP]    Afanasyev, A., Yi, C., Wang, L., Zhang, B., and L. Zhang,
              "SNAMP: Secure Namespace Mapping to Scale NDN Forwarding",
              IEEE Global Internet Symposium, 2015.

   [SPIT]     Yuan, H. and P. Crowley, "Scalable Pending Interest
              Table Design: From Principles to Practice", IEEE INFOCOM,
              2014.

   [VRSGN]    "Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief", July 2016.

   [WPIT]     Varvello, M., Perino, D., and L. Linguaglossa, "On the
              Design and Implementation of a Wire-speed Pending Interest
              Table", IEEE INFOCOM NOMEN Workshop, 2013.

Appendix A.  Additional Stuff

   This becomes an Appendix.






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Authors' Addresses

   Aytac Azgin
   Huawei Technologies
   Santa Clara, CA  95050
   USA

   Email: aytac.azgin@huawei.com


   Ravishankar Ravindran
   Huawei Technologies
   Santa Clara, CA  95050
   USA

   Email: ravi.ravindran@huawei.com



































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