Content, connectivity, and cloud: ingredients for the network of the future

A new network architecture for the Internet needs ingredients from three approaches: information- centric networking, cloud computing integrated with networking, and open connectivity. Information-centric networking considers pieces of information as first-class entities of a networking architecture, rather than only indirectly identifying and manipulating them via a node hosting that information; this way, information becomes independent from the devices they are stored in, enabling efficient and application- independent information caching in the network. Cloud networking offers a combination and integration of cloud computing and virtual networking. It is a solution that distributes the benefits of cloud computing more deeply into the network, and provides a tighter integration of virtualization features at computing and networking levels. To support these concepts, open connectivity services need to provide advanced transport and networking mechanisms, making use of network and path diversity (even leveraging direct optical paths) and encoding techniques, and dealing with ubiquitous mobility of user, content and information objects in a unified way.