BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION

Information-Centric Networking (ICN) marks a fundamental shift in communications and networking. ICN focuses on finding and transmitting information to end users instead of connecting end hosts that exchange information. The key concepts are expected to have a huge impact on the familiar textbook protocol stack, in network architecture in general, and will create new opportunities for all associated stakeholders including equipment vendors, network operators, service and content providers, and above all end-users.


SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES

Information-centric networking is to succeed only if it can to provide clearly superior solutions to well-known problems in the current generation of all-IP networks and can be introduced to general usage incrementally. We invite authors to consider the following aspects with respect to information-centric networks:

Naming & addressing: there is currently a strong association between content naming and addressing. Information-centric networking aims to introduce new ways for identifying content in a location-independent manner. What breakthroughs in naming and addressing will make ICN scalable when faced with a global network of billions of devices and zettabytes of available content?

Protocol stack: the original TCP/IP protocol stack was neat and simple. Today's stack is arguably neither having been extended through patchwork over several decades. Can ICN simplify things?

Network architecture: ICN is expected to have a profound effect on network architecture as storage capacity becomes an integral element of all network nodes. What does an ICN network architecture look like?

Management: resource/mobility/multihoming management are add-ons to the current architecture. With ICN we have the opportunity to include support for all these aspects right from the start. What are the essential characteristics of a complete management framework that is scalable, flexible, and suitable for ICN?

Caching: Information-centric networking is an in-network process that relies on content storage in the network so as to efficiently access popular content, alleviate flash-crowd effects, improve the end-user quality of experience, and increase network efficiency. This raises new issues to be addressed such as buffer management and caching policy.

Energy efficiency: battery-powered devices abound and will dominate in the future as the primary means for connecting to the Internet. At the same time, there is a strong drive for energy-efficient networking from core networks to access networks, and from data centers to home media centers. ICN has more leverage to make tradeoffs between storage/computation/communication–will ICN pave the way to a holistic energy efficient operation?

Internet of Things (IoT): as the physical world is more and more connected to the digital world through a multitude of sensors and actuators, the current host-centric approach followed in IP networks, typically requiring synchronous, always on, end-to-end connections stretches beyond its capacity to deliver, introducing further inefficiencies. How does ICN scale in the scenarios envisioned for the IoT and how does it compare with current IP-based IoT solutions?

Security and trust is established today through the use of third parties in an end-to-end manner. Synchronous three-way, end-to-end connectivity is a prerequisite, and it does not guarantee provenance. Can ICN foster the development of a more secure and trusted global communications infrastructure?

Business models in the Internet are established between providers according to peering agreements. The new ICN paradigm based on in-network caching may impact the current relationships between players. Which business models could foster a fair relationship between content producers, content providers and service/network providers?


Submitted articles do not need to cover all these aspects but should strive to clearly contrast the ICN approach with the current TCP/IP-based state of affairs.

Prospective authors should describe the key concepts, design, implementation, and evaluation of ICN proposals. Articles that demonstrate the feasibility of groundbreaking approaches through testbed/experimental results are particularly welcome. Topics of particular interest include:

* Naming and name resolution in ICN
* Information/service discovery in ICN
* Flow and congestion control in ICN
* Routing and forwarding in ICN
* Caching an buffer management in ICN
* Security, self-certification, privacy and trust in information-centric networks
* QoS/QoE in ICN
* ICN over heterogeneous networks
* Network programming and APIs for ICN
* Scalability and Performance
* Empirical evaluations of ICN protocol stacks
* Use cases
* Business models


SUBMISSION

We invite authors to submit articles reporting original, previously unpublished research work on information-centric networking. Articles must be tutorial in nature, accessible to a wide audience in the communications technology community. Articles should be limited to approximately 4500 words, and include no more than a combined total of 6 tables and figures. References should also be limited to no more than 15. Authors can find the complete article guidelines at http://dl.comsoc.org/livepubs/ci1/info/sub_guidelines.html. Authors need to adhere to the IEEE Communications Magazine limits on mathematical content and strive for a tutorial exposition of the problems and their solutions. All articles to be considered for publication must be submitted through the IEEE Manuscript Central (http://commag-ieee.manuscriptcentral.com). Select "July 2012: Information-Centric Networking."


SUBMISSION SCHEDULE

Submission Deadline: November 1, 2011
Notification of Acceptance: February 29, 2012
Final Manuscript Due: May 1, 2012
Publication Date: July 2012


FEATURE TOPIC EDITORS

Dr. Kostas Pentikousis
Huawei Technologies European Research Centre
Email: k.pentikousis@huawei.com

Dr. Prosper Chemouil
Orange Labs
Email: prosper.chemouil@orange-ftgroup.com

Dr. Kathleen Nichols
Huawei Innovation Center
Email: kathleen.nichols@huawei.com

Prof. George Pavlou
University College London, Dept. of Electronic & Electrical Engineering
Email: g.pavlou@ee.ucl.ac.uk

Prof. Dan Massey
Colorado State University
Email: massey@cs.colostate.edu