Optimal Locally Repairable Systematic Codes Based on Packings

Locally repairable codes are desirable for distributed storage systems to improve the repair efficiency. In this paper, we first build a bridge between locally repairable code and packing. As an application of this bridge, some optimal locally repairable codes can be obtained by packings, which gives optimal locally repairable codes with flexible parameters.Comment: 13 page

Bounds and Constructions of Locally Repairable Codes: Parity-check Matrix Approach

A $q$-ary $(n,k,r)$ locally repairable code (LRC) is an $[n,k,d]$ linear code over $\mathbb{F}_q$ such that every code symbol can be recovered by accessing at most $r$ other code symbols. The well-known Singleton-like bound says that $d \le n-k-\lceil k/r\rceil +2$ and an LRC is said to be optimal if it attains this bound. In this paper, we study the bounds and constructions of LRCs from the view of parity-check matrices. Firstly, a simple and unified framework based on parity-check matrix to analyze the bounds of LRCs is proposed. Several useful structural properties on $q$-ary optimal LRCs are obtained. We derive an upper bound on the minimum distance of $q$-ary optimal $(n,k,r)$-LRCs in terms of the field size $q$. Then, we focus on constructions of optimal LRCs over binary field. It is proved that there are only 5 classes of possible parameters with which optimal binary $(n,k,r)$-LRCs exist. Moreover, by employing the proposed parity-check matrix approach, we completely enumerate all these 5 classes of possible optimal binary LRCs attaining the Singleton-like bound in the sense of equivalence of linear codes.Comment: 18 page

Erasure Coding for Distributed Storage: An Overview

In a distributed storage system, code symbols are dispersed across space in nodes or storage units as opposed to time. In settings such as that of a large data center, an important consideration is the efficient repair of a failed node. Efficient repair calls for erasure codes that in the face of node failure, are efficient in terms of minimizing the amount of repair data transferred over the network, the amount of data accessed at a helper node as well as the number of helper nodes contacted. Coding theory has evolved to handle these challenges by introducing two new classes of erasure codes, namely regenerating codes and locally recoverable codes as well as by coming up with novel ways to repair the ubiquitous Reed-Solomon code. This survey provides an overview of the efforts in this direction that have taken place over the past decade.Comment: This survey article will appear in Science China Information Sciences (SCIS) journa

Achieving Arbitrary Locality and Availability in Binary Codes

The $i$th coordinate of an $(n,k)$ code is said to have locality $r$ and availability $t$ if there exist $t$ disjoint groups, each containing at most $r$ other coordinates that can together recover the value of the $i$th coordinate. This property is particularly useful for codes for distributed storage systems because it permits local repair and parallel accesses of hot data. In this paper, for any positive integers $r$ and $t$, we construct a binary linear code of length $\binom{r+t}{t}$ which has locality $r$ and availability $t$ for all coordinates. The information rate of this code attains $\frac{r}{r+t}$, which is always higher than that of the direct product code, the only known construction that can achieve arbitrary locality and availability.Comment: 5 page

An Upper Bound On the Size of Locally Recoverable Codes

In a {\em locally recoverable} or {\em repairable} code, any symbol of a codeword can be recovered by reading only a small (constant) number of other symbols. The notion of local recoverability is important in the area of distributed storage where a most frequent error-event is a single storage node failure (erasure). A common objective is to repair the node by downloading data from as few other storage node as possible. In this paper, we bound the minimum distance of a code in terms of its length, size and locality. Unlike previous bounds, our bound follows from a significantly simple analysis and depends on the size of the alphabet being used. It turns out that the binary Simplex codes satisfy our bound with equality; hence the Simplex codes are the first example of a optimal binary locally repairable code family. We also provide achievability results based on random coding and concatenated codes that are numerically verified to be close to our bounds.Comment: A shorter version has appeared in IEEE NetCod, 201

Local Codes with Addition Based Repair

We consider the complexities of repair algorithms for locally repairable codes and propose a class of codes that repair single node failures using addition operations only, or codes with addition based repair. We construct two families of codes with addition based repair. The first family attains distance one less than the Singleton-like upper bound, while the second family attains the Singleton-like upper bound

Applied Erasure Coding in Networks and Distributed Storage

The amount of digital data is rapidly growing. There is an increasing use of a wide range of computer systems, from mobile devices to large-scale data centers, and important for reliable operation of all computer systems is mitigating the occurrence and the impact of errors in digital data. The demand for new ultra-fast and highly reliable coding techniques for data at rest and for data in transit is a major research challenge. Reliability is one of the most important design requirements. The simplest way of providing a degree of reliability is by using data replication techniques. However, replication is highly inefficient in terms of capacity utilization. Erasure coding has therefore become a viable alternative to replication since it provides the same level of reliability as replication with significantly less storage overhead. The present thesis investigates efficient constructions of erasure codes for different applications. Methods from both coding and information theory have been applied to network coding, Optical Packet Switching (OPS) networks and distributed storage systems. The following four issues are addressed: - Construction of binary and non-binary erasure codes; - Reduction of the header overhead due to the encoding coefficients in network coding; - Construction and implementation of new erasure codes for large-scale distributed storage systems that provide savings in the storage and network resources compared to state-of-the-art codes; and - Provision of a unified view on Quality of Service (QoS) in OPS networks when erasure codes are used, with the focus on Packet Loss Rate (PLR), survivability and secrecy

On Optimal Locally Repairable Codes with Super-Linear Length

Locally repairable codes which are optimal with respect to the bound presented by Prakash et al. are considered. New upper bounds on the length of such optimal codes are derived. The new bounds both improve and generalize previously known bounds. Optimal codes are constructed, whose length is order-optimal when compared with the new upper bounds. The length of the codes is super-linear in the alphabet size

Codes with Unequal Disjoint Local Erasure Correction Constraints

Recently, locally repairable codes (LRCs) with local erasure correction constraints that are unequal and disjoint have been proposed. In this work, we study the same topic and provide some improved and additional results.Comment: 15 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1701.0734

Locally Repairable Codes

Distributed storage systems for large-scale applications typically use replication for reliability. Recently, erasure codes were used to reduce the large storage overhead, while increasing data reliability. A main limitation of off-the-shelf erasure codes is their high-repair cost during single node failure events. A major open problem in this area has been the design of codes that {\it i)} are repair efficient and {\it ii)} achieve arbitrarily high data rates. In this paper, we explore the repair metric of {\it locality}, which corresponds to the number of disk accesses required during a {\color{black}single} node repair. Under this metric we characterize an information theoretic trade-off that binds together locality, code distance, and the storage capacity of each node. We show the existence of optimal {\it locally repairable codes} (LRCs) that achieve this trade-off. The achievability proof uses a locality aware flow-graph gadget which leads to a randomized code construction. Finally, we present an optimal and explicit LRC that achieves arbitrarily high data-rates. Our locality optimal construction is based on simple combinations of Reed-Solomon blocks.Comment: presented at ISIT 2012, accepted for publication in IEEE Trans. IT, 201