# SARAC4N: Socially and Resource-Aware Caching in Clustered Content-Centric Networks
## 1 Introduction  
The existing internet architecture primarily depends on the network layer, specifically the Internet Protocol (IP), which serves as the central mechanism to establish connectivity between nodes. It provides identification or addressability of the content to be accessed or routed when requested [1]. The traditional network protocol suite has evolved with substantial improvements at both the upper and lower layers surrounding the IP layer. Over time, technology has advanced significantly, as have the devices involved, such as handheld equipment [2]. Similarly, communication between peers in peer-to-peer (P2P) systems and the Internet of Things (IoT), which includes billions of interconnected devices, has also evolved and increasingly incorporates social factors [3, 4, 5]. With so much advancement, themajor point of concern is to stabilize the network against fragility and resiliency, ensuring efficient data retrieval times along with its distributed nature. Named Data Networking (NDN) operates on Interest and Data packets. Consumers send Interest packets requesting data by name. The request is forwarded through routers that maintain Pending Interest Tables (PITs). Once the data is found in cache or from the source, it is returned to the requester, populating caches along the reverse path. According to Cisco's Annual Internet Report (2023), global IP traffic is projected to reach 396 exabytes per month in 2025, driven by video streaming, AR/VR, and IoT traffic surges. This exponential rise in data traffic highlights the pressing need for architectures that support efficient content distribution and low-latency data access. The speedy development of the internet and other technologies has resulted in a noteworthy increase in data traffic, making for more complexity in networks [6]. Due to the massive increase in data traffic, a new network architecture is needed with the capability of efficient data delivery and retrieval with reduced delays, avoiding crowdedness with optimized resource consumption. The cleaner slate architecture also emphasizes keeping conventional layers with modifications in the network architecture by transforming the 'WHERE' [7] mechanism to a user-centric 'WHAT' mechanism. [PERSON] introduced Named Data Networks (NDNs) as a future internet architecture (FIA) [8] and explains how they enhance network performance by improving data routing and naming of content by caching and deciding routes on the basis of content names. In Figure 1, the top layer is the same as the TCP/IP suite and presents the application ports and routed protocols, while the lower layer presents the media and transmission mechanism. The packet architecture of NDN is presented in Figure 2, where the process of retrieving data takes place in two stages: first, by searching for the required content and, second, delivering the content. This also includes naming and publishing content [9], whereas the delivery deals with the routing protocols and the methods' exercises to transmit the data. When a host receives a Data packet, it saves it in its cache, deletes the entry from the Pending Interest Table (PIT), and then sends the packet back to the originator. This operation is visually explained in Figure 2. The Content Store (CS), as presented in Figure 3, is the node's first point of orientation. If the demanded data is obtainable in the local storage, the node responds immediately. If not, the PIT stores the request in it and forwards it to another node via a Forwarding Information Base (FIB) [10]. When the data returns, the node updates its local cache (CS), the PIT informs the FIB, and the data is stored in the CS for future use. NDNs are facing some key challenges like scalability, security, interoperability, management of naming conventions, and development of applications, which are addressable. The key issues are proper naming and the mechanisms of caching and content delivery to the requester.