The provision of storage has become a utility as it has moved from local hard disk drives to the cloud. Metaphorically speaking, the cloud is above us whereas the similar phenomenon at ground level is called fog. Many consider the next phase in the architecture of storage to be fog-like, i.e. distributed amongst all the devices around us in the form of information-centric networking.
The URL (uniform resource locator) is the most common way to address network resources today. The URL describes where it is located. Information-centric networking on the other hand addresses resources based on what it is. The information becomes independent of location, application, storage, and means of transport.
Example protocols include InterPlanetary Filing System (IPFS), Hypercore, Maidsafe, and Swarm.
Information-centric networking (ICN) is also known as named data networking (NDN) and content-addressing.
LINKS
- Afanasyev, A. et al. (2018, October). A brief introduction to Named Data Networking. In MILCOM 2018-2018 IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
- Ahlgren, B., et al. (2012). A survey of information-centric networking. IEEE Communications Magazine, 50(7), 26-36.