System and method for data re-protection with erasure coding

Abstract

The disclosure relates data protection management (e.g. data re-protection) for distributed storage systems. Specifically, the systems (and methods) of the disclosure implement erasure coding to protect replicated data efficiently while reducing the storage capacity overhead. Traditional approaches for data re-protection that implement erasure coding often require performing a complete re-encoding to reflect changes in data (e.g. a removal of data). The disclosure provides an improved mechanism for data re-protection by implementing an efficient re-encoding (or un-encoding) process that reduces the requirements for data reads and operations, and thus, reduces the resource requirements for data re-protection.