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，使网络搜索、社交网络、云计算以及分布式文件和视频共享等应用成为可能。在网络上存储和处理大量信息的问题是一个重大而具有挑战性的问题。尽管如此，大多数现有的分布式存储系统都是通过次优复制方案结合ad-hoc网络协议来表示信息的。本研究的重点是在基础层面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，本研究涉及使用网络编码理论来解决现代存储挑战的新型分布式存储代码的设计。众所周知，一般的多源信息理论问题是非常棘手的。本研究的重点是存储网络的框架，并以PI的最新成果为基础来研究：1)编码存储系统的动力学。如何维护网络上的编码信息表示。先前的工作已经证明了网络编码在这类问题中的关键作用，但对于一些感兴趣的情况，其基本界限仍然未知。2)网络编码干扰对准。干扰对准技术的引入是为了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上也有惊人的适用性。本研究正在开发一种新的数学框架，通过优化理论来解释干涉对准技术。该项目通过在线维基书目和在线教程演示与教育发展和推广紧密结合。

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.