Dispersed Storage Width Control for Data Availability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current distributed computing systems face challenges in securely and reliably storing and retrieving large amounts of data across multiple geographically dispersed locations, while ensuring data integrity and availability, especially in the presence of failures and network issues.
Innovation Solution
A distributed computing system that employs dispersed error encoding and decoding techniques to split data into encoded slices, which are then stored across multiple geographically dispersed storage units, allowing for secure, reliable, and fault-tolerant data storage and retrieval, with a network module managing storage parameters, user authentication, and task processing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If data is stored in multiple geographically dispersed locations, then data availability and fault tolerance are improved, but system complexity and coordination overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments data into multiple encoded slices and disperses them across different storage units in a distributed network. Each storage unit independently stores a portion of the encoded data, eliminating the need for complex coordination between centralized storage systems while maintaining data availability and fault tolerance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary encoding layer that transforms original data into encoded slices before distribution. This intermediary process simplifies the storage system by handling complexity at the encoding stage rather than requiring complex coordination mechanisms during storage and retrieval operations.
2Reliability
If redundant copies of data are stored, then data recovery after failures is improved, but storage space consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameters of data representation by applying error correction encoding, which transforms the original data into encoded slices with built-in redundancy. This allows the system to recover from failures using fewer storage resources compared to traditional full redundancy approaches, as the encoded slices contain distributed redundancy information.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a composite data structure where original data is combined with error correction codes to form encoded slices. This composite approach enables efficient storage and recovery by integrating redundancy directly into the data structure rather than storing separate backup copies.
3Reliability
If data is encoded and split into slices, then storage security and fault tolerance are improved, but processing and retrieval complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary encoding and slicing of data before distribution to storage units. By pre-processing the data into encoded slices with embedded redundancy information, the system simplifies retrieval operations as storage units can independently process their assigned slices without requiring complex coordination during the recovery process.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for execution by one or more processing modules of a dispersed storage network (DSN) includes storing a set of encoded data slices in an original plurality of storage units of the DSN associated as a current generation of a storage vault. The method determines whether to increase a width dispersal parameter of the storage vault. When the width dispersal parameter of the storage vault is to be increased, the original plurality of storage units are updated to include at least one additional storage unit to generate an updated plurality of storage units associated as a next generation of the storage vault. The set of encoded data slices are stored in the updated plurality of storage units of the DSN associated as the next generation of the storage vault.