The Role of Data Repositories in Named Data Networking

Persistent in-network storage repository (repo for short) has been an integral component in the Named Data Networking (NDN) architecture since the beginning of its design. Up until now, however, little attention has been paid to the design, development, and usage of repo, while various questions often arise with regard to the relations between repos and other storage components in an NDN-enabled system. This position paper aims to highlight the importance of repo, clarify those questions, and identify remaining work to be done to make repos widely usable in various application scenarios.