DNS Modifications for Real-World ICN Benefits

ICN promises benefits to users and service providers along several dimensions, including lower response time, nearest-replica routing, intrinsic content integrity without external network-level indicators, location-independent naming and improved support for mobility. Unfortunately these benefits come at a non-trivial cost as many ICN proposals call for adding significant complexity to the network, e.g. by having routers serve as content caches and support nearest-replica routing, or replacing IP routing entirely. Moreover, many open questions regarding content naming, caching, routing, security, discovery and scalability remain that must be solved before any proposal can be considered as mature enough to be deployed at Internet scale. This paper is driven by the question of whether an evolutionary path can be found towards implementing Internet-scale ICN systems based on modifications to the DNS to achieve scalable ICN routing with location-independent naming using a mapping approach and leveraging infrastructure elements existing today. An analytical model to investigate the scaling properties is proposed, and ICN performance parameters are evaluated.