Erasure Code Encoding for Multi-Path Network Reliability
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Solution Overview
Problem
The complexity of managing and provisioning physical computing resources in large-scale data centers and computer networks has increased due to their growing scale and scope, with existing technologies lacking effective solutions for efficiently routing communications across multiple network paths and ensuring reliability and security.
Innovation Solution
A system that uses a manager module to dynamically determine and encode communications into multiple parts using erasure codes, allowing them to be sent through alternative network paths, with communication manager modules at source and destination nodes handling encoding and decoding to ensure reliable and secure transmission.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If communications are sent through multiple network paths using erasure codes, then reliability and security are improved, but device complexity and processing overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The communication manager module segments outgoing communications into multiple parts using erasure codes, distributing them across different network paths. This segmentation allows the system to recover the original communication even if some parts are lost, thereby improving reliability while managing complexity through structured division of data
Solution Approach 2:
The communication manager module acts as an intermediary between the source computing node and the network, performing encoding and decoding operations. This intermediary role centralizes the complexity management, allowing individual network paths to remain simple while the intermediary handles the sophisticated erasure coding and recovery processes
2Reliability
If communications are encoded into multiple parts and sent through alternative paths, then data integrity is improved, but transmission time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically determines the quantity of message parts to encode based on available alternative network paths and their characteristics. This dynamic adaptation allows the system to optimize between reliability and transmission time by adjusting the encoding level according to current network conditions, preventing unnecessary time loss when full redundancy is not needed
Solution Approach 2:
The communication manager module changes parameters such as the number of encoded parts and selection of network paths based on real-time network conditions. By adjusting these parameters dynamically, the system can improve data integrity when needed while minimizing transmission time when network conditions are favorable, resolving the contradiction between reliability and speed
3Reliability
If erasure coding is applied to outgoing communications, then security against packet loss is improved, but processing overhead and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies partial erasure coding by determining an optimal quantity of message parts to encode based on network conditions and security requirements. Rather than always encoding to maximum redundancy, the communication manager module applies just enough encoding to achieve the desired security level, reducing unnecessary computational energy consumption while maintaining adequate protection against packet loss
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are described for providing managed computer networks. In some situations, the techniques include managing communications for computing nodes of a managed computer network by automatically determining to separate a particular outgoing packet or other outgoing communication from a source computing node into multiple parts (e.g., multiple packets) to be independently sent using two or more alternative network paths between the sending computing node and the destination for the communication. For example, a manager module associated with the source computing node may automatically determine to encode the outgoing communication into a dynamically determined quantity of multiple parts (e.g., by using a configurable erasure code), such as based on current information about available alternative paths, and another manager module associated with the destination may receive at least some of the multiple parts and decode them into the original outgoing communication, which is then provided to the destination.