Fast distributed caching using erasure coded object parts

Abstract

Systems and methods are described for providing rapid access to data objects stored in a cache. Rather than storing data objects directly, each object can be broken into a number of parts via erasure coding, which enables the object to be generated from less than all parts. When servicing a request for the data object, a device can attempt to retrieve all parts, but begin to generate the data object as soon as a sufficient number of parts is retrieved, even if requests for other parts are outstanding. In this way, the data object can be retrieved without delay due to the slowest requests. For example, where one or more requests timeout, such as due to failure of cache devices, this timeout may have no effect on time required to retrieve the data object from the cache.