In this talk I will present our recent HotNets paper, in which we propose to extend the resource pooling principle to also take advantage of in-network resources, in terms of multiplicity of available sub-paths and in-network caching space. In particular, we question the widely adopted view of in-network caches acting as temporary storage for the most popular content in Information-Centric Networks. Instead, we propose that in-network storage is used as a place of temporary custody for incoming content in a store-and-forward manner. Given this functionality of in-network storage, senders push content into the network in an open-loop manner to take advantage of underutilised links. When content hits the bottleneck link it gets re-routed through alternative uncongested paths. If alternative paths do not exist, incoming content is temporarily stored in in-network caches, while the system enters a closed-loop, back-pressure mode of operation to avoid congestive collapse.

Lorenzo Saino is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at UCL. His current research interests focus on the design and implementation of networked caching systems. Before joining UCL, he was a research engineer at Orange Labs where he worked on information security and mobile computing and received the Orange Labs best patent of the year award in 2011. He received his B.Sc. in Telecommunications Engineering from Politecnico di Milano (Milan, Italy) and his M.Sc. In Telecommunications from UCL.