Content Distribution Network for Streaming using
Multiple Galois Fields
Tsung-Kang Hung, Sachin K. Kaushal, Hsu-Feng Hsiao
2021 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) | 978-1-7281-9201-7/20/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ISCAS51556.2021.9401700
Dept. of Computer Science, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Dept. of Computer Science, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
mrowder@gmail.com, sachin.eecs2018.ee06@nycu.edu.tw, hillhsiao@cs.nctu.edu.tw
Abstract— In this paper, the architecture of random linear
network coding based on the hybrid coding in multiple Galois field
sizes is proposed. Random linear network coding is an efficient
network coding approach that enables network to generate
independently and randomly linear mapping between input and
output symbols over finite field. With the proposed reduction
method, coded symbols and coefficients in higher degree of Galois
field can be converted to symbols and coefficients in GF(2) so that
hybrid coding in multiple Galois field sizes can be made possible.
Therefore, peers in the heterogeneous environments can all benefit
from the proposed content distribution network for streaming to
better utilize the network resource.
Keywords—linear network coding, CDN, Galois field
I. INTRODUCTION
Random linear network coding (RLNC) is an efficient
network coding approach that can generate independently and
randomly linear mapping between input and output symbols
over a finite field, as known as Galois field, with a finite number
pn of elements. The number of elements of a Galois field GF (pn)
is referred to as its size or order.
In [1], an adaptive causal network coding was proposed as
a generalization of the joint optimization coding solution for
point-to-point communication with delayed feedback. Intra-
flow random linear network coding has been used to improve
the performance of a wireless network containing lossy links [2].
The use of linear network coding for storage in distributed
clouds in order to reduce storage and traffic costs when adding
and removing numerous storage devices/clouds on-the fly was
proposed in [3]. In [4], a mapping of the population of packets
over an RLNC coding system based on finite fields was also
used to eliminate redundant information on the network for
better throughput. The Reed-Solomon codes are linearized in [5]
for reliability and security. An analysis of completion delay and
decoding complexity was conducted for field-based systematic
RLNC schemes in wireless broadcast in [6], and it is shown in
[7] that network coding has the capability to improve network
throughput by extending the traditional store and forward
mechanism.
However, in a traditional linear network coding, its high
density can be a problem for practical implementations. Low-
density random linear fountain (LDRLF) codes [8], which
combine the concepts of fountain codes and linear network
coding, have been taken into consideration. Decreasing the
density introduces an error floor, but many practical applications
actually do not need arbitrarily small erasure probabilities. It is
justifiable to decrease the density and also the computational
978-1-7281-9201-7/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE
Authorized licensed use limited to: IEEE Xplore. Downloaded on May 14,2021 at 14:02:34 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
complexity of encoding and decoding. Comparison studies have
showed that random linear fountain codes over higher order
Galois fields actually exhibit a performance gain compared to
codes over lower order fields. LDRLF codes with higher Galois
field sizes show better symbol erasure probability, and it also
requires less time in decoding process. In terms of the memory
usage, the low-density random linear fountain codes in lower
Galois fields use less memory than the codes in higher field sizes
[8]. In [9], the authors analyzed table-based implementation and
optimization techniques for multiplication in Galois fields. In
[10], network coding extends the concept of encoding a message
beyond source coding and channel coding to increase network
throughput and to provide robustness to transmission errors and
network dynamics. An online fountain code is defined in [11] as
a fountain code for which an optimal encoding strategy can be
found efficiently. An encoding method with linear complexity is
proposed in [12] for general LDPC codes. It is reported in [13]
that the relays in random linear network coding can boost the
performance against packet loss by recoding and transmitting
the coded packets. In [14], the authors proposed to use
probabilistic network coding for wireless sensor networks where
packets can be selected for encoding.
In a streaming application over heterogeneous networks, the
wide diversity of network conditions and device capabilities can
present a great challenge to the design of a streaming system.
We believe that low-density random linear network codes can
benefit from a concept of hybrid coding using multiple Galois
fields simultaneously. In this paper, a streaming framework of
content distribution network (CDN) using multiple Galois fields
simultaneously is proposed. We propose algorithms that can
decode message symbols using coded symbols in multiple
Galois fields. We further develop a re-encoding algorithm that
can produce coded symbols in a specified Galois field using
other coded symbols in multiple Galois fields. Based on the
proposed algorithms, special edge servers are defined in the
proposed CDN that could receive coded symbols encoded using
different Galois fields and use whatever received to generate
new coded symbols for other special edge servers and its peer
nodes. Therefore, for the proposed method, a user can choose to
join a subnetwork with a specific field size that can match the
requirement of that user while the overall distribution time can
be reduced, compared to traditional network coding systems.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The details of
our proposed method are in section II. The evaluation and
comparison of the proposed method will be described in section
III, and section IV shows the conclusions.
 II. PROPOSED CONTENT DISTRIBUTION NETWORK USING
MUTLTIPLE GALOIS FIELDS
As stated earlier, each Galois field size has its advantages and
disadvantages. Therefore, in a streaming system over
heterogeneous networks, a peer can benefit from using random
linear network coding over a certain Galois field based on its
coding conditions that could be different from others. In this
paper, we propose a streaming framework of content
distribution network (CDN) using multiple Galois fields
simultaneously.
Traditionally, the coded symbols in multiple field sizes
couldn’t be decoded at the same time in a conventional system
but our proposed method could solve this problem using the
proposed reduction method for coded symbols in various field
sizes. In the following sub-sections, we will introduce the
proposed content distribution network with multiple field sizes,
the re-encoding and decoding approaches, as well as the
reduction method.
A. Content distribution network with multiple field sizes
Different Galois field sizes have different features on the
decoding performance and the requirement of hardware device.
The arithmetical operations of Galois field are different from the
real number. The work in [15] evaluates a variety of operations
in Galois fields.
To facilitate the heterogeneous nature of peers in a streaming
system, a content distribution network with multiple Galois
fields is proposed as shown in Fig. 1. The origin server possesses
the streaming data in the beginning, and it could generate coded
symbols for transmission with desired field sizes as shown in
Fig. 2.
Fig. 1. The content distribution network system.
Fig. 2. The flow chart of the original server.
There are edge servers connected to the origin server and
other edge servers. An edge server is responsible for generating
the symbols in a specified field size for the peers in its subnet.
Peers in the same subnet would receive the coded symbols in the
same Galois field from their corresponding edge servers. As a
result, a peer can decode them using a traditional decoding
algorithm. An edge server can also transmit coded symbols to
other edge servers at spare bandwidth in the proposed system.
However, for a traditional node, receiving coded symbols in
different field sizes does not help recover the message symbols
in a stream. To make use of the network bandwidth, we design
the reduction method for decoding symbols in multiple fields
sizes on the edge server.
Authorized licensed use limited to: IEEE Xplore. Downloaded on May 14,2021 at 14:02:34 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
The reduction method would reduce the coded symbols to
GF (2). Before re-encoding to new coded symbols, an edge
server would check whether the message symbols in the high
order field size exist or not. In the re-encoding step, the edge
server could use these message symbols to generate the new
coded symbols as shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. The flow chart to generate new coded symbols at an edge server.
B. Encoding with different field sizes
In our system, the origin server would generate coded
symbols and transmit them to the edge servers. For a different
edge server, the origin server should generate the coded
symbols using the specified Galois field size that suits its peers
in the corresponding subnet. The advantage of using network
coding for distributing data is that the scheduling of the content
propagation in the overlay network is much easier as reported
in [16]. The arithmetical operations with a Galois field size
make use of irreducible polynomials depending on the given
field order. In the proposed system, the data of streaming are
divided into sections. A section includes m windows of size k
bits. All of the windows in a section share the same coding
coefficients to generate the coded symbol as shown in Fig. 4.
Fig.4. All of the windows use the same coding coefficients to generate coded
symbols.
The steps of the encoding are as follows:
 To decide the coding field size 2q and each
window divided in to 𝑘𝑞 message symbols with
q bits as shown in Fig. 5.
Fig.5. A window is divided into message symbols with q bits.
 Randomly generate a seed and use it to produce
degree d and the coding coefficients for the
selected d message symbols using the pseudo
random function.
 Compute the coded symbols for each window as
shown in Fig. 6 and encapsulate in a packet
together with the random seed.
Fig. 6. Generating new coded symbols.
C. Re-encoding with the multiple field sizes
In our proposed system, an edge server would re-encode the
data to transmit to its receivers. There are two scenarios to
generate re-encoded symbols.
The first scenario is re-encoding only with received coded
symbols. To control the increase of coding overhead, the re-
encoding is done by randomly selecting three received symbols
to be linearly combined. To perform this linear combination, a
random seed used to produce the required coefficients, and
finally, the packet containing re-encoded symbol, the random
seeds of the selected received symbols, and the new seed can
be generated. The receiver of this newly produced symbol can
then use the seeds to generate the coding coefficients by itself.
The second scenario is to perform re-encoding with the
received symbols as well as decoded message symbols for the
better diversity of the re-encoded symbols. Degree d is first
determined using a degree distribution to randomly select d
message symbols for re-encoding. Considering not all of the
message symbols are available, a bitmap of d bits is designed
to keep track of the status of the selected d message symbols.
Then, re-encoding with the decoded message symbols and
received coded symbols is similar to the re-encoding method
for the first scenario by performing the linear combination of
the data, as shown in Fig. 7. In addition to the random seeds of
the received coded symbols, a new random seed will be
required to determine d message symbols, as well as the new
coding coefficients. Re-encoded symbols will not be used to
produce another re-encoded symbol to avoid undesired growth
of header length for recording random seeds.
Fig.7. Re-encoding using the decoded message symbols and the received
coded symbols.
D. Decoding with multiple field sizes and reduction method
For linear network coding, it takes kq linearly independent
coded symbols in the same Galois field 2q and coding
coefficients. All of the received symbols could compose a
matrix 𝑑̂ = [ 𝑑̂1 ; 𝑑
̂2 ; … . 𝑑𝑘 ] and all coding coefficients are
𝑞
placed in matrix 𝑉̂ = [𝑣 ̂; 𝑣
̂; ̂
2 … . 𝑣𝑘𝑞 ] where the matrix 𝑉 is the
1 1+m7+m6+m3)x3+(m15+m14+m10+m6+m5+m3+m2)x2+(m
decoding matrix. The original data M can be decoded as 𝑀 ̂=
̂ × 𝑉̂
𝐷 −1 . Gaussian elimination can be used for such decoding
[17].
In the proposed system shown in Fig. 1, however, an edge
server can receive coded symbols in multiple field sizes. A
traditional approach cannot deal with coded symbols in
multiple sizes since multiple irreducible polynomials are
involved.
To solve this issue, we propose a reduction method to
convert all the received coded symbols in multiple field sizes to
symbols and coefficients in terms of GF(2). After that, the
problem of decoding symbols in multiple field sizes could be
Authorized licensed use limited to: IEEE Xplore. Downloaded on May 14,2021 at 14:02:34 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
considered as decoding symbols in GF(2) only. A received
packet contains the coding coefficients and the coded symbol
in GF(2l). A number in GF(2l) could be represented in
polynomial with degree l-1 and the coefficient of each term is
in GF(2). Therefore, a symbol in GF(2l) could provide l data in
GF(2).
The proposed reduction method is to reduce a symbol in
GF(2l) to GF(2) as follows. For a coded symbols d and coding
coefficients v=[v1;v2;…; 𝑣𝑘𝑞 ] in GF(2l):
d = ∑𝑖 𝑣𝑖 𝑚𝑖 (1)
where 𝑚𝑖 is the ith message symbol. The elements in Galois
field can be represented in polynomial with coefficients in
GF(2), we could rewrite (1) as the polynomial below:
d(x) =∑𝑙−1 𝑞
𝑞=0 𝑑𝑞 𝑥 = ∑𝑖 𝑣𝑖 (𝑥) 𝑚𝑖 (𝑥) (2)
∑𝑖 𝑣𝑖 (𝑥) 𝑚𝑖 (𝑥) = ∑𝑖 (∑𝑙−1 𝑣
𝑞=0 𝑖,𝑞 𝑥 𝑞 ∑𝑙−1
. 𝑚
𝑞=0 𝑖,𝑞 𝑥 𝑞
)=
∑𝑖(∑2𝑙−2 ̂ 𝑞
𝑞=0 𝑑𝑖,𝑞 𝑥 ) (3)
Considering the multiplication operator over finite field,
when calculating the result of normal polynomial multiplication,
the result of multiplication shall perform module R which is an
irreducible polynomial of degree l. The operation module could
be treated as replacing 𝑥 𝑙 by R -𝑥 𝑙 repeatedly until all the terms
with degree higher than 𝑥 𝑙−1 are replaced as shown in (4).
̂ 𝑞 ′ 𝑞
∑𝑖(∑2𝑙−2 𝑙−1
𝑞=0 𝑑𝑖,𝑞 𝑥 ) = ∑𝑖 (∑𝑞=0 𝑑𝑖,𝑞 𝑥 ) (4)
′
𝑑̂𝑖,𝑞 and 𝑑𝑖,𝑞 above can be represented using 𝑣𝑖,𝑞 and 𝑚 𝑖,𝑞 . It
can been shown that the coefficients in d(x) could be
represented by 𝑣𝑖,𝑞 and 𝑚𝑖,𝑞 . Therefore, a coded symbol over
GF(2l) can be considered as l symbols in GF(2).
Reducing the coded symbols in GF(2l) could be considered
as multiplying the coding coefficients and polynomial whose
coefficients are the message symbols respectively. In (4),
coefficients of each term could be considered as the coding
coefficients of the new coded symbols.
To explain the reduction method, assume we receive a coded
symbol 211 with coding coefficients (35,18) in GF(28). If (M1,
M2) are the message symbols in GF(28), we know that 211 =
35*M1 + 18*M2. The message symbols in GF(2) are
represented as m1, m2, …, ,m16. The coded symbol can be
expressed in polynomial as 211 = x7+x6+x4+x+1, and the
coding coefficients as 35 = x5+x+1 and 18 = x4+x.
Therefore, 35* M1 + 18* M2 can be rewritten as the following.
(x5+x+1)*(m8x7+m7x6+…+1)+(x4+x)*(m16x7+m15x6+…+1)
=(m16+m15+m3)x7+(m16+m15+m14+m2)x6+(m15+m14+m
13+m8+m1)x5+(m14+m13+m12+m8+m7)x4+(m15+m13+m1
16+m14+m13+m9+m5+m4+m2+m1)x1+(m16+m13+m4+m1)
…. (5)
The result of equation (5) is equal to (6).
x7+x6+x4+x+1 (6)
The coefficients of each term in (5) could be seen as coding
coefficients of new coded symbols. In (6), coefficients of each
term could be seen as the data of new coded symbol. For
example, the term x7 can be represented as 1 =(m16+m15+m3).
The coded symbol is 1, and the coding coefficients are
(0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1). Therefore, reducing coded
symbols in GF(28) to the eight coded symbols in GF(2) is
achieved.
 With the reduction method, we can convert a received coded
symbol in different Galois field into many coded symbols over
GF(2). Then, Gaussian elimination can be applied to decode the
symbols in the same Galois field.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
To show the performance of the proposed content
distribution network, a CDN topology for simulation is shown
in Fig. 8. Each subnet has four edge servers and four end users.
The origin server would generate the coded symbols in two Fig. 9. The decoding rate of edge servers with the bandwidth of each flow
coding field sizes for the subnets. For each section in the 1Mbytes/sec.
simulation, there are 960 windows and the size of each window
is 400 bits. An edge server would receive the coded symbols
from the origin server and other edge servers. The performance
of hybrid coding with multiple field sizes (Mix) will be
compared with the performance without the ability of reduction
method (NC). End users in the same subnet would receive
coded symbols in same field size re-encoded by the edge
servers in the same subnet. Two experiments with 2 and 3
subnets will be shown here where 104 simulations each will be
performed and the average results are calculated.

Fig. 10. The decoding rate of end users with the bandwidth of each
flow1M~4Mb/sec.
Fig. 8. Topology with 2 subnets of our simulation.

For the first experiment, there are two subnets with Galois
fields GF(22) and GF(28). As shown in Fig. 9, the decoding rate
at edge servers of the proposed hybrid coding with reduction
method is much better than the decoding rate of using
traditional random linear network coding. The decoding rate at
end users in Fig. 10 also shows improvement for the proposed
method at different bandwidth capability of end users (from
1Mbps to 4Mbps).
When there are three subnets with Galois fields GF(22),
GF(24), and GF(28), we can observe similar performance as Fig. 11. The decoding rate of edge server with the bandwidth of each flow
shown in Fig. 11 and Fig. 12. Note that when the bandwidth of 1Mbytes/sec.
an end user increases, the decoding rate can be saturated since
the decoding rate of an end user will be bounded by the
decoding rate of its edge servers.
IV. CONCLUSION
A content distribution network to decode symbols in
multiple Galois fields simultaneously is proposed where a peer
can choose to join a subnetwork with a specific field size that
can match the requirement of that peer. We propose a reduction
method to convert coded symbols and the corresponding
coefficients to GF(2) so that we can design re-encoding
algorithms that can produce coded symbols in a specified Galois
field using other coded symbols in multiple Galois fields. Based
on the experimental results, the performance can be much
improved since the bandwidth can be utilized better.

Fig. 12. The decoding rate of user peers with the bandwidth of each flow
1M~4Mb/sec.

Authorized licensed use limited to: IEEE Xplore. Downloaded on May 14,2021 at 14:02:34 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 References
[1] Cohena, A., Thiranb, G., Brachac, V. B., & Médardd, M. (2020).
Adaptive causal network coding with feedback for multipath multi-hop
communications. IEEE Transactions on Communications.
[2] Ma, S., Liu, X., Yan, Y., Zhang, B., & Zheng, J. (2020, June). Sliding-
Window Based Batch Forwarding using Intra-Flow Random Linear
Network Coding. In 2020 International Wireless Communications and
Mobile Computing (IWCMC) (pp. 1660-1665). IEEE.
[3] Fitzek, F. H., Toth, T., Szabados, A., Pedersen, M. V., Lucani, D. E.,
Sipos, M., & Medard, M. (2014, June). Implementation and performance
evaluation of distributed cloud storage solutions using random linear
network coding. In 2014 IEEE International Conference on
Communications Workshops (ICC) (pp. 249-254). IEEE.
[4] Julio, Y. R., Garcia, I. G., & Marquez, J. (2020, February). R-IoT: An
Architecture Based on Recoding RLNC for IoT Wireless Network with
Erase Channel. In International Conference on Information Technology
& Systems (pp. 579-588). Springer, Cham.
[5] Martínez-Peñas, U., & Kschischang, F. R. (2019). Reliable and secure
multishot network coding using linearized Reed-Solomon codes. IEEE
Transactions on Information Theory, 65(8), 4785-4803.
[6] Su, R., Sun, Q. T., & Zhang, Z. (2020). Delay-Complexity Trade-off of
Random Linear Network Coding in Wireless Broadcast. IEEE
Transactions on Communications, 68(9), 5606-5618.
[7] Gonçalves, D., Signorello, S., Ramos, F. M., & Médard, M. (2019,
September). Random linear network coding on programmable switches.
In 2019 ACM/IEEE Symposium on Architectures for Networking and
Communications Systems (ANCS) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
[8] B. Schotsch, R. Lupoaie, P. Vary, "The performance of low-density
random linear fountain codes over higher order Galois fields under
maximum likelihood decoding", Proc. Allerton 2011, 2011-Sep
[9] M
K.M. Greenan, E.L. Miller, T.J.E. Schwarz, "Optimizing Galois Field
Arithmetic for Diverse Processor Architectures and Applications", Proc.
Authorized licensed use limited to: IEEE Xplore. Downloaded on May 14,2021 at 14:02:34 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE Int'l Symp. Modeling Analysis and Simulation of Computers and
Telelcomm. Systems (MASCOTS ’08), 2008.
[10] Magli, E., Wang, M., Frossard, P., & Markopoulou, A. (2013). Network
coding meets multimedia: A review. IEEE Transactions on
Multimedia, 15(5), 1195-1212.
[11] Cassuto, Y., & Shokrollahi, A. (2015). Online fountain codes with low
overhead. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 61(6), 3137-3149.
[12] Lu, J., & Moura, J. M. (2009). Linear time encoding of LDPC
codes. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 56(1), 233-249.
[13] Maboudi, B., & Pahlevani, P. (2020). Security overhead of random linear
network coding in multicast relay networks. Transactions on Emerging
Telecommunications Technologies, e3963.
[14] Eman, A. H., Faroq, A. T., Correia, N., & Barradas, A. (2020, July).
Probabilistic Network Coding for Reliable Wireless Sensor Networks.
In Doctoral Conference on Computing, Electrical and Industrial
Systems (pp. 129-136). Springer, Cham.
[15] Greenan, K. M., Miller, E. L., & SJ, T. J. S. (2008, September).
Optimizing Galois Field arithmetic for diverse processor architectures and
applications. In 2008 IEEE International Symposium on Modeling,
Analysis and Simulation of Computers and Telecommunication
Systems (pp. 1-10). IEEE.
[16] Gkantsidis, C., & Rodriguez, P. R. (2005, March). Network coding for
large scale content distribution. In Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint
Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies. (Vol.
4, pp. 2235-2245). IEEE.
[17] Bioglio, V., Grangetto, M., Gaeta, R., & Sereno, M. (2009). On the fly
gaussian elimination for LT codes. IEEE Communications Letters, 13(12),
953-955.