Distributed Storage over Unidirectional Ring Networks

Abstract: In this paper, we study distributed storage problems over unidirectional ring networks, whose storage nodes form a directed ring and data is transmitted along the same direction. The original data is distributed to store on these nodes. Each user can connect one and only one storage node to download the total data. A lower bound on the reconstructing bandwidth to recover the original data for each user is proposed, and it is achievable for arbitrary parameters. If a distributed storage scheme can achieve this lower bound with equality for every user, we say it an optimal reconstructing distributed storage scheme (ORDSS). Furthermore, the repair problem for a failed storage node in ORDSSes is under consideration and a tight lower bound on the repair bandwidth is obtained. In particular, we indicate the fact that for any ORDSS, every storage node can be repaired with repair bandwidth achieving the lower bound with equality. In addition, we present two constructions for ORDSSes of arbitrary parameters, called MDS construction and ED construction, respectively. Particularly, ED construction, by using the concept of Euclidean division, is more efficient by our analysis in detail.