Information-centric networking beyond baseline scenarios: research advances and implementation [Guest Editorial]

Information-centric networking (ICN) has received significant attention in recent years, mainly driven by the fact that distributing and manipulating information has become the major function of the Internet today. Unlike the traditional host-centric networking paradigm where information is obtained by contacting specified named hosts, ICN is aimed at providing native network primitives for efficient information retrieval by directly naming and operating on information objects. Foreseeing the need and benefits of developing the future Internet with ICN concepts as a key ingredient, many leading research groups, both industrial and academic, have created a sizable community devoting their efforts to information- centric future Internet designs and prototype implementations.