35 research outputs found
Algorithms and Throughput Analysis for MDS-Coded Switches
Network switches and routers need to serve packet writes and reads at rates
that challenge the most advanced memory technologies. As a result, scaling the
switching rates is commonly done by parallelizing the packet I/Os using
multiple memory units. For improved read rates, packets can be coded with an
[n,k] MDS code, thus giving more flexibility at read time to achieve higher
utilization of the memory units. In the paper, we study the usage of [n,k] MDS
codes in a switching environment. In particular, we study the algorithmic
problem of maximizing the instantaneous read rate given a set of packet
requests and the current layout of the coded packets in memory. The most
interesting results from practical standpoint show how the complexity of
reaching optimal read rate depends strongly on the writing policy of the coded
packets.Comment: 6 pages, an extended version of a paper accepted to the 2015 IEEE
International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT
When Queueing Meets Coding: Optimal-Latency Data Retrieving Scheme in Storage Clouds
In this paper, we study the problem of reducing the delay of downloading data
from cloud storage systems by leveraging multiple parallel threads, assuming
that the data has been encoded and stored in the clouds using fixed rate
forward error correction (FEC) codes with parameters (n, k). That is, each file
is divided into k equal-sized chunks, which are then expanded into n chunks
such that any k chunks out of the n are sufficient to successfully restore the
original file. The model can be depicted as a multiple-server queue with
arrivals of data retrieving requests and a server corresponding to a thread.
However, this is not a typical queueing model because a server can terminate
its operation, depending on when other servers complete their service (due to
the redundancy that is spread across the threads). Hence, to the best of our
knowledge, the analysis of this queueing model remains quite uncharted.
Recent traces from Amazon S3 show that the time to retrieve a fixed size
chunk is random and can be approximated as a constant delay plus an i.i.d.
exponentially distributed random variable. For the tractability of the
theoretical analysis, we assume that the chunk downloading time is i.i.d.
exponentially distributed. Under this assumption, we show that any
work-conserving scheme is delay-optimal among all on-line scheduling schemes
when k = 1. When k > 1, we find that a simple greedy scheme, which allocates
all available threads to the head of line request, is delay optimal among all
on-line scheduling schemes. We also provide some numerical results that point
to the limitations of the exponential assumption, and suggest further research
directions.Comment: Original accepted by IEEE Infocom 2014, 9 pages. Some statements in
the Infocom paper are correcte
TOFEC: Achieving Optimal Throughput-Delay Trade-off of Cloud Storage Using Erasure Codes
Our paper presents solutions using erasure coding, parallel connections to
storage cloud and limited chunking (i.e., dividing the object into a few
smaller segments) together to significantly improve the delay performance of
uploading and downloading data in and out of cloud storage.
TOFEC is a strategy that helps front-end proxy adapt to level of workload by
treating scalable cloud storage (e.g. Amazon S3) as a shared resource requiring
admission control. Under light workloads, TOFEC creates more smaller chunks and
uses more parallel connections per file, minimizing service delay. Under heavy
workloads, TOFEC automatically reduces the level of chunking (fewer chunks with
increased size) and uses fewer parallel connections to reduce overhead,
resulting in higher throughput and preventing queueing delay. Our trace-driven
simulation results show that TOFEC's adaptation mechanism converges to an
appropriate code that provides the optimal delay-throughput trade-off without
reducing system capacity. Compared to a non-adaptive strategy optimized for
throughput, TOFEC delivers 2.5x lower latency under light workloads; compared
to a non-adaptive strategy optimized for latency, TOFEC can scale to support
over 3x as many requests
Performance models of access latency in cloud storage systems
Access latency is a key performance metric for cloud storage systems and has great impact on user experience, but most papers focus on other performance metrics such as storage overhead, repair cost and so on. Only recently do some models argue that coding can reduce access latency. However, they are developed for special scenarios, which may not reflect reality. To fill the gaps between existing work and practice, in this paper, we propose a more practical model to measure access latency. This model can also be used to compare access latency of different codes used by different companies. To the best of our knowledge, this model is the first to provide a general method to compare access latencies of different erasure codes.postprin