An Enhanced Replica Selection Approach Based on Distance Constraint in ICN

Fifth generation (5G) networks have a high requirement for low latency of data delivery. Information-centric networking (ICN) adopts the paradigm of separation of the identifier and locator. It is efficient in content distribution by supporting in-network caching and has the potential to satisfy the low latency requirement in 5G. Replica selection is a key problem to retrieving content in ICN. Prior research usually utilizes the nearest replica. However, using the nearest replica cannot guarantee the smallest content download delay. To exploit in-network caching better, we propose an enhanced replica selection approach, called ERS. ERS first uses a distance-constrained-based name resolution system to discover the nearby replicas. Then, the most appropriate replica is chosen according to a local state table that maintains the state of replica nodes within a limited domain. In addition to network distance and replica node load, ERS innovatively introduces the path congestion degree between requester and replica nodes to assist replica selection. With extensive simulations, the proposed approach shows better performance than the state-of-the-art methods in terms of average content download delay. Finally, the overhead of the proposed method is analyzed.