DECoupled Application Data Enroute (DECADE)
Content distribution applications, such as those those employing peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies, are widely used on the Internet and make up a large portion of the traffic in many networks. Often, however, content distribution applications use network resources in a counter-productive manner. One way to improve efficiency is to introduce storage capabilities within the network and enable cooperation between end-host and in-network content distribution mechanisms. This is the capability provided by a DECADE system, which is introduced in this document. DECADE enables applications to take advantage of in-network storage when distributing data objects as opposed to using solely end-to-end resources. This document presents the underlying principles and key functionalities of such a system and illustrates operation through a set of examples.