Cana

The host-to-host communications model cannot efficiently accommodate the current Internet usage, which focuses on content distribution/retrieval than the use of host resources. To bridge the gap, we propose a new content-aware networking architecture (CANA) which is characterized by (i) content identifier (e.g. URL) is added into the TCP/IP protocol header (e.g. IP option header), so that network entities such as routers are aware of the content being requested/delivered, and (ii) the role of an IP address is reduced; it indicates not the endpoint, but a transit point. For each transit point, there should be a mapping entry (as similar to NAT) that connects two adjacent ones of an end-to-end path. In this way, CANA can deliver the contents efficiently to hosts even with private addresses while inherently supporting multicast and mobility. Furthermore, as CANA does not modify the existing TCP/IP header, it can be incrementally deployed with legacy routers, in contrast to the prior content networking proposals 1, 2.