Distributed fragments file system

A method for improving the storage security and fault-tolerance of a digital computer file, F, comprising the steps of:

• a. using N (N>1) heterogeneous (independently owned and operated) cloud providers, CP0 . . . CPN-1, such that each cloud provider stores a unique fragment of file F, wherein:
• b. encrypting the file, F, using a new b-bit random number, k, where b is the relevant encryption key size in bits, and generating file F′;
• if encryption is not use F′=f;
• c. using an interleaving scheme for rearranging the order of bytes or bits in F′ and creating an output stream, F″, with a preferred embodiment based on the use of a rectangular matrix written column-wise and read row-wise;
• d. dividing up F″ for use with FEC encoders, with the preferred embodiment configured for fault tolerance against failure of one of the constituent cloud providers;
• e. applying the FEC encoding to each input block of size K generated by the previous step, and obtaining output blocks of size R (R=K+P, P is the number of parity bytes generated by the selected FEC encoder);
• f. fragmenting each output block from step ‘e’ above into N sub-blocks, one per cloud provider;
• g. storing fragments generated by step f above based on an adaptation process comprised of:
• i. optional merging of one or more fragments from different output blocks of step ‘f’ and creating bigger fragments, one per file system;
• ii. optional encryption of the resulting fragments from step ‘g.i’ above
• iii. simultaneously storing, through parallel network transactions, the resulting N fragments from step ‘g.ii’ above at N cloud providers;
• or
• sequentially storing, when parallel operations are not feasible or desirable, the resulting N fragments one at a time with the respective N cloud providers;
• h. creating meta information comprising file size, file modification date, access permissions, number of file systems, encryption type, encryption keys, FEC type, or any other fields or values about the file considered useful for display, listing, access or reassembling fragments when the file is read;
• and
• i. storing the meta information through recursive application of the present invention across the same set of N cloud providers or a subset of those N cloud providers or another set of M cloud providers (M>=1).