Dispersed Slice Storage With Threshold Commit for Fault Tolerance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current dispersed storage networks face challenges in securely and reliably storing data across multiple storage units without loss, especially when dealing with data corruption and unauthorized access, while maintaining efficiency and scalability.
Innovation Solution
A dispersed storage network (DSN) architecture that uses error encoding techniques, such as Cauchy Reed-Solomon encoding, to distribute data across multiple geographically dispersed storage units, ensuring data integrity and security through encryption and redundancy, with a managing unit for vault creation and integrity processing for error correction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If data is distributed across multiple storage units using error encoding, then data reliability and security are improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments data into multiple data slices and distributes them across different storage units. Error encoding slices are separately generated and stored to enable recovery. This segmentation allows the system to achieve high reliability through distribution while managing complexity by separating data slicing from error correction functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces error encoding slices as intermediary elements that mediate between stored data and recovery requirements. These intermediary slices contain encoded information that enables data reconstruction without requiring direct access to all original data slices, thus simplifying the recovery process while maintaining reliability.
2Reliability
If error encoding is used to prevent data loss, then data security is improved, but storage efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs Cauchy Reed-Solomon error encoding which transforms data into a different mathematical representation. This parameter transformation allows the system to achieve robust error correction capabilities while optimizing the ratio of data slices to error encoding slices, thereby balancing security requirements with storage efficiency.
3Reliability
If data is dispersed across multiple units, then fault tolerance is improved, but data retrieval complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates error encoding slices that serve as computational copies containing redundant information. These copies enable data retrieval through mathematical reconstruction rather than requiring physical access to all original data slices, thus simplifying the retrieval process while maintaining fault tolerance.
4Reliability
If encryption is applied to secured data slices, then data security is improved, but processing speed decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies encryption to data slices and error encoding slices during the initial storage process. By performing encryption preliminarily rather than during retrieval operations, the system maintains high security while avoiding speed penalties during data access, as the cryptographic operations are completed during the more flexible storage phase.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for use in a dispersed storage network (DSN) operates to output at least a write threshold number of write slice requests to a set of storage units of the DSN and receive write slice responses from the set of storage units. When the write threshold number of favorable write slice responses is received, the method includes generating a corresponding number of commit requests and outputting the number of commit requests to associated storage units corresponding to the write threshold number of favorable write slice responses received.