Advancing named data networking: a comprehensive survey on naming and packet lookup mechanisms

Named Data Networking (NDN) has emerged as a promising content-centric paradigm for the future Internet, transitioning from host-based to data-centric communication. This survey presents a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art naming and packet lookup mechanisms in NDN, addressing critical challenges including scalability, memory efficiency, lookup latency, table update complexity, and deployment feasibility. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first survey to jointly examine both naming and packet lookup mechanisms within a unified taxonomy, providing comparative insights across diverse domains, including wired and wireless NDN environments. We classify naming schemes into hierarchical, flat, attribute based, and hybrid approaches, and evaluate packet lookup schemes in the Content Store (CS), Pending Interest Table (PIT), and Forwarding Information Base (FIB) data structures. Here, we defines packet lookup in a specific context, referring exclusively to the name-based search conducted on the CS, PIT, and FIB, as compared to the wider packet processing flow. This survey highlights domain-specific design trade-offs, architectural directions, and the implications of emerging technologies. Finally, we identify open research challenges and propose future directions that involve dynamic naming, distributed PIT designs, integration with emerging technologies, and standardization, aiming to advance the efficiency and adaptability of NDN in real-world scenarios.