Named Multipath Depth-First Search: An SDN-based Routing Strategy for Efficient Failure Handling and Content Delivery in NDN

Abstract

Information-centric networking (ICN) architectures, such as named data networking (NDN), have emerged as potential solutions for efficiently retrieving and delivering content. However, challenges remain regarding routing scalability, resilience, and caching efficiency. Software-defined networking (SDN) offers opportunities to optimize NDN implementations through centralized control and programmability. In this paper, we propose Named Multipath DFS, an SDN-based routing and caching scheme for NDN networks. NMDFS leverages a centralized controller to pre-compute multipath routes and implement coordinated caching. We evaluate NMDFS on an emulated topology testbed against default NDN and Named-data link state routing. The results demonstrate significant improvements with NMDFS, reducing overhead signalling costs by 94% and 78%, respectively, compared with other schemes. Round-trip latencies for content retrieval were reduced by up to 98%. The SDN controller’s global network view and control are leveraged to optimize content caching through packet loss-driven adaptation and eliminate redundant messaging, leading to substantial performance gains.