DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This action is responsive to filed on 11/21/2025.
Claims 1-7, 9-16, 18 are subject to examination. Claims 8, 17, 19-27 are cancelled.
This amendment and applicant’s arguments have been fully considered and entered by the Examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1-7, 9, 10-16, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Qu et al. U.S. Patent # 8,806,266 (hereinafter Qu) in view of Antony et al. U.S. Patent # 2016/0371127 (hereinafter Antony)
With respect to claim 1, Qu teaches a method performed by a controller (i.e. router) for handling a failure or change of a processing element in a virtual network (column 2 lines 35-44), the processing element having a first stateless executable function that uses a local state storage and a persistent state storage when executed on a host in the virtual network (column 8 lines 46-58)(column 9 lines 9-22) , the method comprising: maintaining the local state storage of the processing element after removing the first stateless executable function (i.e. removing primary VM) from the processing in response to the failure or change (i.e. primary VM failing) (column 13 lines 21-28); creating a second stateless executable function (i.e. backup/standby VM) to replace the first stateless executable function of the processing element (column 13 lines 21-28); associating the maintained local state storage (i.e. replicating full memory state of primary VM) of the processing element with the created second stateless executable function of the processing element (i.e. to the standby VM which now has full memory state)(column 13 lines 21-28)(column 15 lines 1-16); and initiating the second stateless executable function using the associated maintained local state storage such that the processing element resumes execution from its real-time state before the failure or change (i.e. standby VM becomes the new primary VM after the switchover) (column 16 lines 3-24)
Qu does not explicitly teach the first and second stateless executable functions being interfaced with persistent storage systems in which a state is stored according to certain time intervals
Antony teaches stateless executable functions being virtual machines or containers (Paragraph 45) the first and second stateless executable functions (i.e. one or more containers) being interfaced with persistent storage systems (i.e. different VM) in which a state is stored (i.e. restarting a stateless container in a different VM) according to certain time intervals (i.e. as retaining the state at the time of failure and then restart it) (Paragraph 45, 43-44). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to implement first and second stateless executable functions being interface with interface storage systems in which a state is stored according to certain time intervals. The motivation for doing so would be restarting the failed VM in given default period of time in which to complete the restart or reboot process and retaining the state at the time of the failure (Paragraph 43, 45)
With respect to claim 2, Qu and Antony teaches the method of claim 1, Antony further teaches wherein the real time state of the processing element comprises the user/session context information associated with an application or service requested by a user client in the virtual network ( Paragraph 17)
With respect to claim 3, Qu and Antony teaches the method of claim 1, Qu further teaches wherein the second stateless executable function is initiated on the same host in the virtual network that executes the processing element with the first stateless executable function and the local state storage (column 13 lines 21-28)(column 15 lines 1-16) Although Qu teaches stateless executable functions being VM, Qu does not explicitly state first stateless executable functions being containers.
Antony teaches stateless executable functions being virtual machines or containers (Paragraph 45). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Antony’s teaching in Qu’s teaching to come up with having stateless executable function being containers. The motivation for doing so would because stateless provides relatively high level of abstraction in cloud computing and also application can be run in stateless computing containers that may be event triggered.
With respect to claim 4, Qu and Antony teaches the method of claim 1, Qu further teaches wherein the maintaining of the local state storage further comprises retaining an identifier of the local state storage (column 3 lines 44-48)(column 5 lines 3-18)
With respect to claim 5, Qu and Antony teaches the method of claim 1, Qu further teaches wherein the identifier of the local state storage is a process identification numeral or process ID that is identical with the process identification numeral or process ID associated with the first stateless executable function (i.e. replicating the full memory) (column 3 lines 44-48)(column 5 lines 3-18)
With respect to claim 6, Qu and Antony teaches the method of claim 1, Qu further teaches wherein the first and second stateless executable functions are configured to maintain the state of the processing element in the local state storage and commit the state of the processing element to the persistent state storage at determined time intervals (column 9 lines 37-46)
With respect to claim 7, Qu and Antony teaches the method of claim 1, Antony further teaches wherein the processing element is a virtual container, the first and second stateless executable functions are container executables, and the local state storage is a storage class allocation (Paragraph 45, 18)
With respect to claim 9, Qu and Antony teaches the method of claim 1, Antony further teaches wherein the virtual network is implemented using a cloud-computing platform (Paragraph 15). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Antony’s teaching in Qu’s teaching to come up with having stateless executable function being containers. The motivation for doing so would because stateless provides relatively high level of abstraction in cloud computing and also application can be run in stateless computing containers that may be event triggered.
With respect to claims 10-16, 18 respectively, teaches same limitations as claims 1-7, 9 respectively, therefore rejected under same basis.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to amended claim limitation for independent claims 1, 10 has been considered but are moot in view of new grounds of rejections.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
A). Naidu et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2020/0409803 which teaches about maintaining state information pertaining to a backup process and restore process.
B). Ngo et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2019/0102265 which teaches about highly available stateful containers in a cluster environment.
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DHAIRYA A. PATEL
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2453
/DHAIRYA A PATEL/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453