Bandwidth Consumption in CCN: A Comparative Evaluation

In this simulation-based performance study, we focus on bandwidth consumption in CCN, taking into consideration the effect that in-network caching and FIBs have on this consumption, under topologies and workloads of varying characteristics. Unlike previous performance studies, we do not assume pre-populated FIBs. We focus primarily, but not exclusively, on the default CCN forwarding strategy (flooding) to populate the FIBs and forward packets. We observed that FIBs contribute far more to reducing the bandwidth consumption of Interest packets than in-network caching. We also identify two problematical design issues that impact CCN performance: (a) FIB entries that include routes to volatile cached content potentially maximize the benefits of in-network caching but may also lead to anomalous circuitous paths; and (b) calibration of PIT timeouts is surprisingly difficult and fraught with pitfalls. Keywords—CCN performance evaluation; bandwidth consumption; caching; forwarding