IDG Contributor Network: Named data networking: Stateful forwarding plane for datagram delivery
The Internet was designed to connect things easily, but a lot has changed since its inception. Users now expect the internet to find the “what” (i.e., the content), but the current communication model is still focused on the “where.”
The Internet has evolved to be dominated by content distribution and retrieval. As a matter of fact, networking protocols still focus on the connection between hosts that surfaces many challenges.
The most obvious solution is to replace the “where” with the “what” and this is what Named Data Networking (NDN) proposes. NDN uses named content as opposed to host identifiers as its abstraction.
How the traditional IP works
To deliver packets from a source to a destination, IP needs to accomplish two phases of operation. The first phase is the routing plane also known as the control plane. This phase enables the routers to share routing updates and select the best path to construct the forwarding information table (FIB). The second phase is the forwarding plane also known as the data plane. This is the phase where forwarding to the next hop is executed upon FIB examination.