Project CCNx Announces the CCNx v1.0 Protocol Roadmap

Project CCNx® is sponsored by PARC and is based upon our Content-Centric Networking (CCN) architecture, which is the focus of a major, long-term research and development program to solve challenges in next-generation networking, cloud infrastructure, content distribution, scalability, mobility, and security.

Project CCNx exists to develop, promote, and evaluate this new approach to networking and communication architecture. PARC’s support of Project CCNx includes creating and publishing open protocol specifications and an open source software reference implementation of those protocols. We also provide support for a community interested in experimentation, research, and building applications with this technology, all contributing to its evolution.

CCNx technology is still at an early stage of development, focusing on infrastructure and a few applications. The current code base is ideally suited to researchers and adventurous network engineers or software developers. There are interesting problems in many areas still to be solved to fully realize and apply the vision, but we believe that enough of an architectural foundation is in place to enable significant experiments and research. Since this new approach to networking can be deployed through middleware software communicating in an overlay on existing networks, it is possible to start applying it now to solve communication problems in new ways.

In November, Project CCNx reached another major milestone with the release of the CCNx 1.0 Protocol Specifications Roadmap.

The CCNx protocol specification has developed considerably since its early conceptions. A new framing of the protocols results in a layered approach, with individual CCNx related protocols specified in separate RFC-style documents such that a protocol developer or implementor may work on specific protocols. We specify a minimal core set of protocols necessary to realize CCNx via Interests and Content Objects, then add functionality to that core via individual protocol specification documents. This roadmap describes the new protocol architecture and directs to specific documents that describe, in detail, the CCNx approach to information-centric networking.

Project CCNx is an invitation to join us and participate in this exploration of the frontier of content networking. Read the CCNx 1.0 Protocol Specifications Roadmap and learn more about Project CCNx.