OneCode Architecture: A Single RLNC Regenerating Code for Storage and Transport

Abstract:
Distributed storage systems for low-power IoT devices typically employ a two-layer design, utilizing replication or Reed–Solomon codes for storage reliability and hop-by-hop ARQ or FEC on the wireless links for transport. This separation increases the complexity of systems and, under multihop erasures, exponentially increases the repair bandwidth. We propose OneCode, a single random-linear network code reused end-toend: the same RLNC primitive creates the initial packets, recodes forwarded packets in multi-hop communication, and regenerates lost data with functional repairs after a node failure. Closed-form analysis and simulations for a 16-node IoT cluster show that OneCode at the minimum-bandwidth (MBR) point repairs with only 0.17–0.25 file equivalents, even when each hop erases 30% of the packets, whereas Reed–Solomon exceeds 30 file equivalents under the same conditions. OneCode thereby offers order-ofmagnitude savings in both storage and traffic, without requiring a transcoding layer.