Providing requested content in an overlay information centric networking (O-ICN) architecture

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9781033-B2
Application number	US-201514693949-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 23, 2015
Priority date	Dec 12, 2014
Publication date	Oct 3, 2017
Grant date	Oct 3, 2017

Abstract

Methods and systems for providing requested content to a user device in an Overlay Information Centric Network (O-ICN) architecture are disclosed herein. The method may include receiving a request for accessing content, from the user device. The request is routed to the ICN manager from an ICN router. The method may also include parsing the request to determine whether the request is an ICN based request. The ICN-based request is associated with a flag. Further, the method includes based on the determination, identifying at least one network entity hosting the requested content. The identification is based on a name of the content. The method also includes sending a notification to the at least one identified network entity for providing the requested content to the user device.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for providing requested content to a user device in an overlay information centric networking (O-ICN) architecture, the method comprising:
receiving, by an ICN manager system via a processor, a request for accessing content, from the user device, wherein the request is routed to the ICN manager system from an ICN router, wherein the ICN router is patched to communicate with the ICN manager system, wherein the O-ICN architecture comprises an ICN sub-layer added at a top of a transport layer of a TCP/IP protocol stack, and the O-ICN architecture enables seamless operation in a SDN network and a non-SDN network by means of the ICN sub-layer, and wherein the request comprises an ICN sub-layer header comprising a content name field to indicate a name of the requested content and a flag bit used to indicate that the request is an ICN based request or an ICN based content, and a reserved bit of a TCP header used to indicate that the request is the ICN based request or a non-ICN based request;
parsing, by the ICN manager system via the processor, the request to determine whether the request is the ICN-based request based on at least one of the flag bit of the ICN sub-layer header and the reserved bit of the TCP header;
based on the determination that the request is the ICN based request, identifying, by the ICN manager system via the processor, at least one network entity hosting the requested content by comparing the name of the content with a plurality of network entities, and wherein the ICN manager system maintains a record of the content being hosted by each of the plurality of network entities; and
sending, by the ICN manager system via the processor, a notification directly to the at least one identified network entity hosting the requested content for providing the requested content to the user device and directly sharing an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the user device with the at least one network entity for providing the requested content to the user device.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the O-ICN architecture is implemented as an overlay network over an Internet, and wherein the O-ICN architecture is implemented incrementally as the overlay network over the Internet without impacting functionalities of the Internet.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the at least one network entity is one of the ICN router and an ICN server.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3 , wherein the at least one network entity sets a reserved bit of the TCP header to 1 while providing the requested content to the user device.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising communicating, by the ICN manager system, with one of a neighboring ICN manager system and other ICN manager system placed at a higher level in the hierarchy, to identify the at least one network entity hosting the requested content.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the flag bit is a first bit of the ICN sub-layer header.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising routing, by the ICN manager system the request to a network entity based on an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the network entity as mentioned in the request, when the request is a non-ICN based request.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the identifying comprises resolving, by the ICN manager system name of the content requested by the user device.

9. An information centric networking (ICN) manager system for providing requested content to a user device in an overlay information centric networking (O-ICN) architecture, the ICN manager system comprising:
a processor;
a memory coupled to the processor, and the processor executes a plurality of modules stored in the memory, wherein the plurality of modules comprises,
a parsing module, coupled to the processor, to,
receive a request from an ICN router for providing the requested content to the user device, wherein the O-ICN architecture comprises an ICN sub-layer added at a top of a transport layer of a TCP/IP protocol stack, and the O-ICN architecture enables seamless operation in a SDN network and a non-SDN network by means of the ICN sub-layer, and wherein the request comprises an ICN sub-layer header comprising a content name field to indicate a name of the requested content and a flag bit used to indicate that the request is an ICN based request or an ICN based content, and a reserved bit of a TCP header used to indicate that the request is the ICN based request or a non-ICN based request;
parse the request to
determine whether the request is the ICN based request based on at least one of the flag bit of the ICN sub-layer header and the reserved bit of the TCP header; and
determine the name of the content as requested by the user device, wherein the user device is capable of sending name based requests;

an identification module, coupled to the processor, to
upon determination, identify at least one network entity hosting the requested content by comparing the name of the content with a plurality of network entities, and wherein the ICN manager system maintains a record of the content being hosted by each of the plurality of network entities; and
based on the identification, send a notification to the at least one network entity for providing the requested content to the user device and sharing an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the user device with the at least one network entity for providing the requested content to the user device.

10. The ICN manager system as claimed in claim 9 , wherein the identification module maintains a record of the content being hosted by a plurality of network entities.

11. The ICN manager system as claimed in claim 9 , wherein the identification module communicates with one of a neighboring ICN manager and other ICN manager placed at a higher level in the hierarchy to identify the at least one network entity hosting the requested content.

12. A method for generating an information centric networking (ICN) based request for receiving requested content to a user device in an overlay information centric networking (O-ICN) architecture, the method comprising:
determining, by the user device, a name of content for being requested;
generating, by a user device, a request header, wherein the request header comprises a plurality of header fields, wherein the plurality of header fields comprises an ICN content name field to indicate name of the requested content; and
associating, by the user device, a flag with a reserved bit of the request header to indicate that the request is an ICN based request, wherein the O-ICN architecture is implemented as an overlay network over an Internet, and wherein the O-ICN architecture is implemented incrementally as the overlay network over the Internet without impacting functionalities of the Internet, and wherein the O-ICN architecture comprises an ICN sub-layer added at a top of a transport layer of a TCP/IP protocol stack, and the overlay information centric networking (O-ICN) architecture enables seamless operation in a SDN network and a non-SDN network by means of the ICN sub-layer.

13. The method as claimed in claim 12 , wherein the ICN content name field is a multiple of 32 bits.

14. The ICN manager system as claimed in claim 9 , wherein the O-ICN architecture is implemented as an overlay network over an Internet, and wherein the O-ICN architecture is implemented incrementally as the overlay network over the Internet without impacting functionalities of the Internet.

Assignees

• Tata Consultancy Services Ltd

Inventors

• Shailendra Samar
• Panigrahi Bighnaraj
• Rath Hemant Kumar
• Simha Anantha

Classifications

• H04L67/327

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L69/22

  Parsing or analysis of headers · CPC title

• H04L45/74 Primary

  Address processing for routing · CPC title

• H04L45/04

  Interdomain routing, e.g. hierarchical routing · CPC title

• H04L67/63

  Routing a service request depending on the request content or context · CPC title