A family of optimal locally recoverable codes

A code over a finite alphabet is called locally recoverable (LRC) if every symbol in the encoding is a function of a small number (at most $r$) other symbols. We present a family of LRC codes that attain the maximum possible value of the distance for a given locality parameter and code cardinality. The codewords are obtained as evaluations of specially constructed polynomials over a finite field, and reduce to a Reed-Solomon code if the locality parameter $r$ is set to be equal to the code dimension. The size of the code alphabet for most parameters is only slightly greater than the code length. The recovery procedure is performed by polynomial interpolation over $r$ points. We also construct codes with several disjoint recovering sets for every symbol. This construction enables the system to conduct several independent and simultaneous recovery processes of a specific symbol by accessing different parts of the codeword. This property enables high availability of frequently accessed data ("hot data").Comment: Minor changes. This is the final published version of the pape

Constructions of Optimal and Almost Optimal Locally Repairable Codes

Constructions of optimal locally repairable codes (LRCs) in the case of $(r+1) \nmid n$ and over small finite fields were stated as open problems for LRCs in [I. Tamo \emph{et al.}, "Optimal locally repairable codes and connections to matroid theory", \emph{2013 IEEE ISIT}]. In this paper, these problems are studied by constructing almost optimal linear LRCs, which are proven to be optimal for certain parameters, including cases for which $(r+1) \nmid n$. More precisely, linear codes for given length, dimension, and all-symbol locality are constructed with almost optimal minimum distance. `Almost optimal' refers to the fact that their minimum distance differs by at most one from the optimal value given by a known bound for LRCs. In addition to these linear LRCs, optimal LRCs which do not require a large field are constructed for certain classes of parameters.Comment: 5 pages, conferenc

Higher Hamming weights for locally recoverable codes on algebraic curves

We study the locally recoverable codes on algebraic curves. In the first part of this article, we provide a bound of generalized Hamming weight of these codes. Whereas in the second part, we propose a new family of algebraic geometric LRC codes, that are LRC codes from Norm-Trace curve. Finally, using some properties of Hermitian codes, we improve the bounds of distance proposed in [1] for some Hermitian LRC codes. [1] A. Barg, I. Tamo, and S. Vlladut. Locally recoverable codes on algebraic curves. arXiv preprint arXiv:1501.04904, 2015

Optimal locally repairable codes of distance 33 and 44 via cyclic codes

Like classical block codes, a locally repairable code also obeys the Singleton-type bound (we call a locally repairable code {\it optimal} if it achieves the Singleton-type bound). In the breakthrough work of \cite{TB14}, several classes of optimal locally repairable codes were constructed via subcodes of Reed-Solomon codes. Thus, the lengths of the codes given in \cite{TB14} are upper bounded by the code alphabet size $q$. Recently, it was proved through extension of construction in \cite{TB14} that length of $q$-ary optimal locally repairable codes can be $q+1$ in \cite{JMX17}. Surprisingly, \cite{BHHMV16} presented a few examples of $q$-ary optimal locally repairable codes of small distance and locality with code length achieving roughly $q^2$. Very recently, it was further shown in \cite{LMX17} that there exist $q$-ary optimal locally repairable codes with length bigger than $q+1$ and distance propositional to $n$. Thus, it becomes an interesting and challenging problem to construct new families of $q$-ary optimal locally repairable codes of length bigger than $q+1$. In this paper, we construct a class of optimal locally repairable codes of distance $3$ and $4$ with unbounded length (i.e., length of the codes is independent of the code alphabet size). Our technique is through cyclic codes with particular generator and parity-check polynomials that are carefully chosen

Capacity of Locally Recoverable Codes

Motivated by applications in distributed storage, the notion of a locally recoverable code (LRC) was introduced a few years back. In an LRC, any coordinate of a codeword is recoverable by accessing only a small number of other coordinates. While different properties of LRCs have been well-studied, their performance on channels with random erasures or errors has been mostly unexplored. In this note, we analyze the performance of LRCs over such stochastic channels. In particular, for input-symmetric discrete memoryless channels, we give a tight characterization of the gap to Shannon capacity when LRCs are used over the channel.Comment: Invited paper to the Information Theory Workshop (ITW) 201

Coding with Constraints: Minimum Distance Bounds and Systematic Constructions

We examine an error-correcting coding framework in which each coded symbol is constrained to be a function of a fixed subset of the message symbols. With an eye toward distributed storage applications, we seek to design systematic codes with good minimum distance that can be decoded efficiently. On this note, we provide theoretical bounds on the minimum distance of such a code based on the coded symbol constraints. We refine these bounds in the case where we demand a systematic linear code. Finally, we provide conditions under which each of these bounds can be achieved by choosing our code to be a subcode of a Reed-Solomon code, allowing for efficient decoding. This problem has been considered in multisource multicast network error correction. The problem setup is also reminiscent of locally repairable codes.Comment: Submitted to ISIT 201