Distributed Data Storage with Minimum Storage Regenerating Codes - Exact and Functional Repair are Asymptotically Equally Efficient

Abstract: We consider a set up where a file of size M is stored in n distributed storage nodes, using an (n,k) minimum storage regenerating (MSR) code, i.e., a maximum distance separable (MDS) code that also allows efficient exact-repair of any failed node. The problem of interest in this paper is to minimize the repair bandwidth B for exact regeneration of a single failed node, i.e., the minimum data to be downloaded by a new node to replace the failed node by its exact replica. Previous work has shown that a bandwidth of B=[M(n-1)]/[k(n-k)] is necessary and sufficient for functional (not exact) regeneration. It has also been shown that if k < = max(n/2, 3), then there is no extra cost of exact regeneration over functional regeneration. The practically relevant setting of low-redundancy, i.e., k/n>1/2 remains open for k>3 and it has been shown that there is an extra bandwidth cost for exact repair over functional repair in this case. In this work, we adopt into the distributed storage context an asymptotically optimal interference alignment scheme previously proposed by Cadambe and Jafar for large wireless interference networks. With this scheme we solve the problem of repair bandwidth minimization for (n,k) exact-MSR codes for all (n,k) values including the previously open case of k > \max(n/2,3). Our main result is that, for any (n,k), and sufficiently large file sizes, there is no extra cost of exact regeneration over functional regeneration in terms of the repair bandwidth per bit of regenerated data. More precisely, we show that in the limit as M approaches infinity, the ratio B/M = (n-1)/(k(n-k))$.