Information-centric networking (ICN) is a promising approach to networking that has the potential to provide better -- more natural and more efficient -- solutions for many of today's important communication applications including but not limited to large-scale content distribution. This article describes the NetInf architecture -- a specific ICN approach that targets global-scale communication and supports many different types of networks and deployments, including traditional Internet access/core network configurations, data centers, as well as challenged and infrastructure-less networks. NetInf's approach to connecting different technology and administrative domains into a single information-centric network is based on a hybrid name-based routing and name resolution scheme. In this article, we describe the most important requirements that motivated the NetInf design. We present an architecture overview and discuss the different architecture elements such as naming, message forwarding, caching, and a NRS in detail. As efficient caching and a scalable NRS are two main success factors, we present an evaluation of both elements based on a theoretical analysis, complemental simulation results, and prototyping results. The results suggest that a scalable NRS for 10^15 and more objects with resolution latencies (well) below 100ms is possible, implying that a global NetInf that removes the need for today's application-specific overlay solutions is feasible.