# Cascade Codes For Distributed Storage Systems

## TL;DR

This paper introduces a new linear coding scheme for distributed storage that optimally balances repair bandwidth and storage overhead, applicable to general system parameters, and features a helper-independent repair process.

## Contribution

It proposes a unified, linear coding construction for exact-repair regenerating codes covering the entire trade-off, with low field size and helper-independent repair mechanism.

## Key findings

- Achieves the entire trade-off including MBR and MSR points
- Field size is only Θ(n), independent of parity nodes
- Sub-packetization level is at most (d-k+1)^k

## Abstract

A novel coding scheme for exact repair-regenerating codes is presented in this paper. The codes proposed in this work can trade between the repair bandwidth of nodes (number of downloaded symbols from each surviving node in a repair process) and the required storage overhead of the system. These codes work for general system parameters $(n,k,d)$, which are the total number of nodes, the number of nodes suffice for data recovery, and the number of helper nodes in a repair process, respectively. The proposed construction offers a unified scheme to develop exact-repair regenerating codes for the entire trade-off, including the MBR and MSR points. We conjecture that the new storage-vs.-bandwidth trade-off achieved by the proposed codes is optimum. Some other key features of this code include: the construction is linear; the required field size is only $\Theta(n)$; and the code parameters and in particular sub-packetization level is at most $(d-k+1)^k$; which is independent of the number of the parity nodes. Moreover, the proposed repair mechanism is \emph{helper-independent}, that is the data sent from each helper only depends on the identity of the helper and failed nodes, but independent of the identity of other helper nodes participating in the repair process.