Sharing mhealth data via named data networking

Abstract

his paper introduces NDNFit, a distributed mobile health (mHealth) application built to use the newly proposed Named Data Networking (NDN) architecture instead of TCP/IP. The design is inspired by the Open mHealth ecosystem. Open mHealth uses a traditional cloud-enabled mobile architecture, but aspires to provide users with direct control of how their personal health data is used by applications and shared with other users within the ecosystem. NDNFit names and secures users' health data directly using NDN network primitives, a more effective building block towards the ideal of user control than IP-based solutions. Its design illustrates that NDN's data-centric approach to networking can be a better fit than current networking approaches for mobile health applications, especially those that foreground individuals' control over their own data and, at the same time, target interoperability. This paper discusses the design and initial implementation of an NDNFit prototype, which offers end-users a mobile fitness tracking application. The paper identifies important differences between NDN and TCP/IP for mHealth, concluding with a discussion of future work and research opportunities.