Repairing Multiple Failures for Scalar MDS Codes

TL;DR

This paper develops a new framework for repairing multiple failed nodes in scalar MDS codes, especially Reed-Solomon codes, reducing repair bandwidth in distributed storage systems.

Contribution

It extends existing repair schemes to handle multiple failures in scalar MDS codes, improving upon recent results for Reed-Solomon codes.

Findings

Framework for multiple failure repair in scalar MDS codes

Specialized repair schemes for Reed-Solomon codes

Improved repair bandwidth efficiency

Abstract

In distributed storage, erasure codes -- like Reed-Solomon Codes -- are often employed to provide reliability. In this setting, it is desirable to be able to repair one or more failed nodes while minimizing the repair bandwidth. In this work, motivated by Reed-Solomon codes, we study the problem of repairing multiple failed nodes in a scalar MDS code. We extend the framework of (Guruswami and Wootters, 2017) to give a framework for constructing repair schemes for multiple failures in general scalar MDS codes, in the centralized repair model. We then specialize our framework to Reed-Solomon codes, and extend and improve upon recent results of (Dau et al., 2017).