Optimal storage codes on graphs with fixed locality

Abstract

Storage codes on graphs are an instance of \emph{codes with locality}, which are used in distributed storage schemes to provide local repairability. Specifically, the nodes of the graph correspond to storage servers, and the neighbourhood of each server constitute the set of servers it can query to repair its stored data in the event of a failure. A storage code on a graph with $n$-vertices is a set of $n$-length codewords over $\field_q$ where the $i$th codeword symbol is stored in server $i$, and it can be recovered by querying the neighbours of server $i$ according to the underlying graph. In this work, we look at binary storage codes whose repair function is the parity check, and characterise the tradeoff between the locality of the code and its rate. Specifically, we show that the maximum rate of a code on $n$ vertices with locality $r$ is bounded between $1-1/n\lceil n/(r+1)\rceil$ and $1-1/n\lceil n/(r+1)\rceil$. The lower bound on the rate is derived by constructing an explicit family of graphs with locality $r$, while the upper bound is obtained via a lower bound on the binary-field rank of a class of symmetric binary matrices. Our upper bound on maximal rate of a storage code matches the upper bound on the larger class of codes with locality derived by Tamo and Barg. As a corollary to our result, we obtain the following asymptotic separation result: given a sequence $r(n), n\geq 1$, there exists a sequence of graphs on $n$-vertices with storage codes of rate $1-o(1)$ if and only if $r(n)=\omega(1)$.