Stateless ICN Forwarding via Dynamic Packet Filters
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional host-centric networking paradigms face inefficiencies in high data rate applications due to the overhead of pending interest tables (PIT) in content routers, which can slow down packet forwarding and increase memory requirements.
Innovation Solution
Implementing stateless forwarding in information-centric networks (ICN) using dynamic in-packet filters that combine and transform filters within interest and data packets, allowing routers to forward packets without relying on saved state information, thus eliminating the need for PITs.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If stateful forwarding with PIT is used in ICN, then routing decisions can be made based on saved state information, but device complexity and memory requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the state information from external PIT structures and embeds it directly within packet filters. Each router maintains only local filter information associated with its ports, eliminating the need for centralized PIT state storage while preserving routing decision accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The packet filters carry their own state information self-contained within the packet header. As packets traverse the network, they present their filters to intermediate routers, which use these self-carried filters for forwarding decisions without requiring external state tables, enabling stateless forwarding.
2Reliability
If PIT is used for content router forwarding, then packets can be forwarded based on destination matching, but forwarding speed decreases due to overhead
Solution Approach 1:
The packet filters are prepared and attached to packets before they enter the network. This preliminary action embeds all necessary routing information directly in the packet, allowing intermediate routers to perform simple filter matching operations without complex PIT lookups, thereby increasing forwarding speed while maintaining accuracy.
3Loss of information
If packet filters are combined at each router, then routing information is preserved, but information loss may occur during combination
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines packet filters from multiple sources (original packet filter and local router filter) into a unified filter structure. The combination process merges filtering criteria while maintaining the ability to reverse the process, ensuring no routing information is lost during the combination operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements an invertible combination process where the merging of filters can be reversed to extract the original local filter. This inversion capability ensures that no information is lost during filter combination, allowing routers to recover their local filter state when needed for subsequent packet processing.
Data Source
AI summary
Technology for stateless forwarding of packets in an ICN is disclosed. Content routers modify a dynamic filter in an interest packet. In one aspect, a content router extracts a dynamic filter from an interest packet received on an ingress port and combines the dynamic filter with a local filter associated with the ingress port. The packet filter and the local filter may be combined without losing information in the packet filter or the local filter. A new filter may be inserted into the interest packet based on the combined packet filter and local filter. The interest packet having the new filter may be forwarded on an egress port. The data packet that returns the content object for the interest packet may be forwarded statelessly based on the dynamic filter. Thus, the data packet may be forwarded without use of a pending interest table (PIT).