Private Information Retrieval Schemes with Regenerating Codes

TL;DR

This paper develops a private information retrieval scheme tailored for regenerating codes, optimizing download efficiency in storage systems that balance storage and repair bandwidth.

Contribution

It introduces a PIR scheme for regenerating codes using the product-matrix framework, reducing download complexity in MBR and MSR settings.

Findings

Achieves low-bandwidth retrieval for regenerating codes.

Reduces download communication complexity.

Applicable to both MBR and MSR storage settings.

Abstract

A private information retrieval (PIR) scheme allows a user to retrieve a file from a database without revealing any information on the file being requested. As of now, PIR schemes have been proposed for several kinds of storage systems, including replicated and MDS-coded data. In this paper, the problem of constructing a PIR scheme on regenerating codes is considered. A regenerating code is a storage code whose codewords are distributed among $n$ nodes, enabling efficient storage of files, as well as low-bandwidth retrieval of files and repair of nodes. In this work, a PIR scheme on regenerating codes is constructed, using the product-matrix (PM) framework of Rashmi, Shah and Kumar. Both the minimum-bandwidth (MBR) and minimum-storage (MSR) settings are considered, and the structure given by the PM framework is used in order to reduce the download communication complexity of our schemes.