Content Routers: Fetching Data on Network Path

In this paper we present an in-network caching architecture based on content routers to improve the traffic efficiency in the Internet. The main idea is to provide a forwarding fabric where data requests are forwarded towards the closest caches in the network path. Conversely, data chunks from the servers are cached in the content routers along the path, serving further requests. In addition, content routers store a neighborhood mapping of available routers, leveraging resource discovery in the network proximity. Some benefits of the architecture include multi-source content retrieval, better traffic efficiency and gradual deployment. As a proof-of-concept, we implemented a content router prototype and evaluated it in different scenarios comparing the bandwidth, latency and neighborhood search. The experimental results show that the content router can leverage multi-source content retrieval with bandwidth reduction without incurring in increased latency.