Big Data Storage: Coding Theory Sprouts a New Branch

Speaker: Prof. P. Vijay Kumar
Affiliation: Indian Institute of Science and USC

Abstract:  The reliable storage of Big Data across a spatially distributed network of nodes calls for codes than can also efficiently handle node repair.  The need for node repair could arise on account of device failure, need for a maintenance reboot, or simply because the node is busy serving other demands.

A new branch of coding theory has sprung up in response.   Regenerating codes minimize data download during a repair operation, while codes with locality ensure that local operations suffice for node repair.

This talk will provide an overview of these recent exciting developments, including fundamental limits and new code constructions, with a bias towards recent results and work by the author’s group.

Biography:  Vijay Kumar received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees from IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kanpur respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from USC in 1983, all in Electrical Engineering. From 1983 to 2003 he was on the faculty of the EE-Systems Department at USC. Since 2003, he has been on the faculty of IISc Bengaluru and was chairman of the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering from 2011-2014. Since 2010, he has also been an adjunct research professor at USC.

His current research interests include codes for distributed storage and intrusion-detection algorithms for wireless sensor networks. He is an ISI highly-cited author and a Fellow of IEEE as well as the Indian National Academy of Engineering. He is also co-recipient of the 1995 IEEE Information Theory Society Prize-Paper award, a Best-Paper award at the DCOSS 2008 conference on sensor networks and the IEEE Data Storage Best-Paper Award of 2011/2012. A pseudorandom sequence family designed in a 1996 paper co-authored by him now forms the short scrambling code of the 3G WCDMA cellular standard. At IISc, he received the Rustum Choksi Award for Excellence in Research in Engineering in 2013 and from 2012-15 held the Tata Chem Chair. He was on the Board of Governors of the IEEE Information Theory Society in 2013-15, was a plenary speaker at ISIT 2014 and a TPC Co-Chair of ISIT 2015 held in Hong Kong.

For more information contact Professors Suhas Diggavi & Mani Srivastava

Date/Time:
Date(s) - Feb 06, 2017
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm

Location:
EE-IV Shannon Room #54-134
420 Westwood Plaza - 5th Flr., Los Angeles CA 90095