SRAN: Scaling Named Data Networking via Map-and-Encap
2026-07-22 • Networking and Internet Architecture
Networking and Internet Architecture
AI summaryⓘ
The authors address the problem of scaling network routing when data requests are tied to many different names, as in Named Data Networking (NDN). They introduce SRAN, a system that separates the way the network finds data by name from how it moves data through the network, focusing core routing only on the network layout. SRAN uses a special encoding method to efficiently handle multicast (sending data to many receivers) without storing lots of state in the network. Their tests show that SRAN keeps routing information manageable as the network grows and updates routes quickly with little extra communication.
Named Data Networking (NDN)routing scalabilityforwarding stateMap-and-Encapegress routerstopological reachabilityBit Index Explicit Replication (BIER)stateless multicastRocketfuel topologyprefix dissemination
Authors
Tianyuan Yu, Sirapop Theeranantachai, Lixia Zhang
Abstract
Network routing scalability is hard to achieve when forwarding state is driven by external entities such as end users or multicast groups. Named Data Networking (NDN) faces this challenge acutely: it fetches data by name, which ties forwarding state to an unbounded number of application name prefixes. This paper presents SRAN, a scalable routing and forwarding architecture for NDN. Building on the Map-and-Encap principle, SRAN separates name-prefix reachability from topological reachability by mapping prefixes to egress routers at the network edge. Consequently, the network core routes and forwards based solely on topological connectivity. SRAN extends this mapping to support multicast by adapting Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER), encoding prefix-to-multiple-egress mappings as a BitString to enable stateless multicast delivery. Implemented on the NDN substrate, SRAN leverages NDN's native security and dataset synchronization for secure routing and prefix-state dissemination, requiring no additional protocol. Evaluation on representative Rocketfuel topologies confirms that the network forwarding state scales with the topology rather than the application-prefix count, and adapts to prefix changes in real time with minimal dissemination overhead.