A PIT–FIB–Based Selective Caching and Replacement Strategy for Named Data Networking
Named Data Networking (NDN) enables in-network caching as a native mechanism to improve content delivery efficiency and reduce network overhead. Cache replacement is an important factor for improving NDN performance. However, most existing cache replacement strategies are derived from traditional host-centric systems and primarily rely on content recency or insertion order, while largely ignoring NDN-specific state information. In particular, the Pending Interest Table (PIT) and Forwarding Information Base (FIB) maintain valuable real-time knowledge about content demand dynamics and forwarding behaviour, which remains underexploited in caching decisions. This paper proposes two approaches: (i) a dynamic cache replacement strategy, PIT-DCREPL, based on parameters of the PIT table, and (ii) a selective caching technique, PIT–FIB–aware selective cache. The proposed schemes integrates PIT metadata and FIB forwarding information to enhance the CHR ( cache hit ratio) by adding a selective cache that prioritizes content with higher expected reuse and forwarding importance. The simulations are conducted using the ndnSIM simulator, varying the content store sizes where the performance evaluation demonstrates that PIT–FIB–aware caching strategies consistently increase the cache hit ratio in cache replacement algorithms. The results confirm that leveraging PIT and FIB information enables adaptive, intelligent, selective caching behaviour in NDN, thereby improving cache efficiency and overall network performance.