Abstract
With the popularity of information and content items that can be cached within ISP networks, developing high-quality and efficient content distribution approaches has become an important task in future internet architecture design. As one of the main techniques of content distribution, in-network caching mechanism has attracted attention from both academia and industry. However, the general evaluation model of in-network caching is seldom discussed. The trade-off between economic cost and the deployment of in-network caching still remains largely unclear, especially for heterogeneous applications. We take a first yet important step towards the design of a better evaluation model based on the Application Adaptation CapaciTy (2ACT) of the architecture to quantify the trade-off in this paper. Based on our evaluation model, we further clarify the deployment requirements for the in-network caching mechanism. Based on our findings, ISPs and users can make their own choice according to their application scenarios. © 2013 IEEE.