CAREER: Network Coding Theory for Distributed Storage

现代数据中心正在成为互联网的下一个计算平台。这些庞大的计算机服务器群是信息时代不可或缺的组成部分，支持网络搜索、社交网络、云计算以及分布式文件和视频共享等应用程序。在网络上存储和处理海量信息是一个重大而具有挑战性的问题，然而，现有的大多数分布式存储系统仍然通过次优复制方案结合自组织网络协议来表示信息。该研究致力于从根本上理解如何在分布式存储系统中表示、存储和处理信息，具体而言，该研究涉及利用网络编码理论设计新型分布式存储代码来应对现代存储挑战。众所周知，一般的多源信息理论问题可能是出了名的棘手。本研究以储存网路架构为研究重点，以PI的最新成果为基础，探讨：1)编码储存系统的动态特性。如何维护网络上的编码信息表示。以前的工作已经证明了网络编码对这类问题的关键作用，但对于几个感兴趣的案例，基本界限仍然未知。2)用于网络编码的干扰对齐。干扰对齐技术被引入以减轻物理层的无线干扰，但在分布式存储和其他网络编码问题中也具有令人惊讶的适用性。这项研究正在开发一种新的数学框架，通过最优化理论来解释干扰对齐技术。该项目通过在线维基书目和在线教程演示，与教育发展和外联活动紧密结合。

Modern data centers are becoming the next computing platform for the Internet. These massive farms of computer servers are an indispensable component of the information age, enabling applications like web search, social networks, cloud computing, as well as distributed file and video sharing. The problem of storing and processing massive amounts of information over networks is significant and challenging.Still, most existing distributed storage systems represent information by suboptimal replication schemes combined with ad-hoc networking protocols. This research is focused on understanding, on a fundamental level, how to represent, store, and process information in distributed storage systems.Specifically, this research involves the design of novel distributed storage codes that use network coding theory to address modern storage challenges. As is well known, general multi-source information theory problems can be notoriously intractable. This research focuses on the framework of storage networks and builds on recent results of the PI to investigate: 1) Dynamics of coded storage systems. How to maintain coded information representations over networks. Prior work has demonstrated the key role of network coding for such problems but the fundamental bounds remain unknown for several cases of interest. 2) Interference Alignment for Network Coding. Interference alignment techniques were introduced to mitigate wireless interference at the physical layer but also have surprising applicability in distributed storage and other network coding problems. This research is developing a novel mathematical framework that interprets interference alignment techniques through optimization theory. This project is strongly coupled with educational developments and outreach through an online wiki bibliography and online tutorial presentations.