erasure coding (EC)

Erasure Coding (EC) is a method for data protection. In erasure coding, information is divided into fragments, augmented with redundant information, and stored on different memories in the network.

The aim is to reconstruct corrupted data with the data stored on different memories. Erasure Coding can be used instead of RAID systems to recover lost or damaged data. Typically, the EC process can recover damaged data sets more quickly. However, due to the increased computational effort involved in Erasure Coding, longer latency periods can also occur.

To recover the data, Erasure Coding uses mathematical functions composed of the original data and the added redundant data, and interpolation. The data combinations, i.e. the fragments and the redundant data stored on different memories, are structured in such a way that missing or incomplete fragments can be reconstructed by other data combinations.