A scalable and flexible packet forwarding method for Future Internet networks

The paper proposes a novel flexible packet forwarding (FPF) method designed for Future Internet networks. It follows the source routing principle at an inter-domain level and applies the list of domain customized identifiers to forward packets on the end-to-end path. The main features are capability to introduce flexible routing path selection, native support for multipath and multicast packet transfer, ability for exploitation of advanced in-network packet processing as, e.g., content recoding and caching. The performance and scalability of FPF approach were evaluated by experimentation on developed prototype as well as by scalability studies assuming Internet-scale network scenario.