Impact of content storage and retrieval mechanisms on the performance of Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks

Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networking (VDTN) is a disruptive network architecture based on the concept of delay tolerant networks (DTNs). VDTNs handle non-real time applications using vehicles to carry bundles, relaying them only when a proper contact opportunity occurs. Therefore, the network performance is directly affected by the storage capacity and message retrieving of intermediate nodes. This paper proposes a suitable content storage and retrieval (CSR) mechanism for VDTN networks. This CSR solution adds additional information on control labels of the setup message associated to the corresponding data bundle (aggregated traffic) that defines and applies caching and forwarding restrictions on network traffic (data bundles). Furthermore, this work presents a performance analysis and evaluation of CSR mechanisms over a VDTN application scenario, using a VDTN testbed. This work presents the comparison of the network behavior and performance using two DTN routing protocols, Epidemic and Spray and Wait, with and without CSR mechanisms. Results show that CSR mechanisms improve the performance of VDTN networks significantly.