In view of evolving the Internet infrastructure, ICN is promoting a communication model that is fundamentally different from the traditional IP address-centric model. The ICN approach consists of the retrieval of content by (unique) names, regardless of origin server location (i.e., IP address), application, and distribution channel, thus enabling in-network caching/replication and content-based security. The expected benefits in terms of improved data dissemination efficiency and robustness in challenging communication scenarios indicate the high potential of ICN as an innovative networking paradigm in the IoT domain. IoT is a challenging environment, mainly due to the high number of heterogeneous and potentially constrained networked devices, and unique and heavy traffic patterns. The application of ICN principles in such a context opens new opportunities, while requiring careful design choices. This article critically discusses potential ways toward this goal by surveying the current literature after presenting several possible motivations for the introduction of ICN in the context of IoT. Major challenges and opportunities are also highlighted, serving as guidelines for progress beyond the state of the art in this timely and increasingly relevant topic.

This memo describes research challenges for Information-Centric Networking (ICN), an approach to evolve the Internet infrastructure to directly support information distribution by introducing uniquely named data as a core Internet principle. Data becomes independent from location, application, storage, and means of transportation, enabling or enhancing a number of desirable features, such as security, user mobility, multicast, and in-network caching. Mechanisms for realizing these benefits is the subject of ongoing research in the IRTF and elsewhere. This document describes current research challenges in ICN, including naming, security, routing,

In the last few years, the research community has witnessed the rapid development of the Information-Centric Networking (ICN) approach aiming at evolving the Internet from today's host based packet delivery towards directly retrieving information in a secure, reliable, scalable, and efficient way. The Internet of Things (IoT) concept envisions scenarios in which “smart objects” can be interconnected to enable a whole new class of applications and services, positively increasing the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Although ICN tested scenarios have been mainly limited to multimedia and data, quoted advantages of ICN make from this architectural design a valuable approach in addressing the challenges that arise from the increasing deployment of IoT. In general, IoT applications impose stringent requirements in terms of information freshness, which can be highly impacted by the intrinsic caching mechanisms existing in ICN approaches. In the present work, the available freshness mechanism conceived as part of the Content-Centric Networking (CCN) protocol is assessed and a novel consumer driven information freshness approach is proposed to satisfy the consumers' needs while mitigating the negative effect of the freshness requirements in the overall network performance. The new mechanism was evaluated through simulation, with obtained results showing that the proposed approach leads to better performance, as compared with the available CCN freshness mechanism.

Network slicing emerges as a key technology in next generation networks, boosted by the integration of software‐defined networking and network functions virtualization. However, while allowing resource sharing among multiple tenants, such networks must also ensure the security requirements needed for the scenarios they are employed. This letter presents the leading security challenges on the use of network slices at the packet core, the solutions that academy and industry are proposing to address them, pointing out some directions that should be considered.