Treeplication: An Erasure Code for Distributed Full Recovery Under the Random Multiset Channel

This paper presents a new erasure code called Treeplication designed for distributed recovery of the full information word, while most prior work in coding for distributed storage only supports distributed repair of individual symbols. A Treeplication code for k information symbols is defined on a binary tree with 2k-1 vertices, along with a distribution for selecting code symbols from the tree layers. We analyze and optimize the code under a random-multiset model, which captures the system property that the nodes available for recovery are drawn randomly from the nodes storing the code symbols. Treeplication codes are shown to have full-recovery communication-cost comparable to replication, while offering much better recoverability.