Content delivery in software defined networks

Information Centric Architectures view content as the narrow waist of the networking stack. This abstraction allows routing based on the content name, rather than the network locator of the content consumer and producer. We present ContentFlow, an Information Centric network architecture which supports content routing by mapping the content name to a OpenFlow defined flow based on TCP and IP semantics. And, thus enables the use of OpenFlow switches to achieve content routing over a legacy IP architecture. ContentFlow is viewed as an evolutionary step between the current IP networking architecture, and a full edged ICN architecture. It supports content management, content caching and content routing at the network layer, while using a legacy OpenFlow infrastructure and a modified controller. By efficiently using the content in- formation available in the network, ContentFlow supports efficient traffic engineering. Also, ContentFlow is transparent from the point of view of the client and the server, and can be inserted in between without modification at either end. The architecture and implementation of ContentFlow on top of the existing OpenFlow software defined networking framework is described. Performance of ContentFlow is evaluated using a prototype implementation of an enterprise SDN network with Floodlight controller and multiple virtualized OpenFlow switches. The results show that ContentFlow does result in reduced content access delay in comparison to a legacy architectures.