In the traditional TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) model, the client requesting some content needs to first map the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) in the name of the content to a server. This server will mostly stay the same for the length of the session. The session is actually bound to this server, and the session's goal is to transfer the specific content held from this server. In such host-centric networking paradigm, the core networking primitives revolve around naming hosts and network interfaces. Network devices can only forward packets according to the destination addresses.
Recently, information-centric networking (ICN) has been proposed. Examples of ICN include, but are not limited to, Named Data Networking (NDN), Content Centric Networking (CCN), Content Oriented Networking (CON), Data Oriented Networking (DON), and Content Based Networking (CBN). Unlike traditional host-centric networking, information is directly named in an ICN. Thus, ICN allows a client device to focus on the data needed, as opposed to referencing a specific location from which the data may be retrieved.
According to some in the field, ICN has emerged as a promising candidate for the architecture of the future Internet as well as the future Internet of Things (IoT). ICN integrates name-based routing and in-network caching as part of the network infrastructure. There are several proposals for ICN. One proposal is Named Data Networking (NDN). An NDN router maintains three data structures: the Forwarding Information Base (FIB) that associates the content names to the forwarding face(s) towards the producer(s), the Pending Interest Table (PIT) that records the incoming faces where the interests came from and have not replied by producer, the Content Store (CS) that caches content from a producer when it is forwarded to the requesters.