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 .
Response to Amendment
The amendment filed 11/10/2025 has been entered. Applicant has amended claims 1-2, 5, 11-12, and 15. Claims 1-20 are currently pending in the instant application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see page 7, filed 11/10/2025, with respect to claims 2 and 12 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejection of claims 2 and 12 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 7-14, filed 11/10/2025, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in further view of Krishnamurthy et al (US 2020/0334068). Krishnamurthy teaches the amended limitations below.
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) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mariappan et al (US 20220278927 A1) in view of Krishnamurthy et al (US 2020/0334068).
Regarding claim 1,
Mariappan discloses:
An apparatus comprising: a computer system including a plurality of processing devices and one or more memory devices operably coupled to the plurality of processing devices, the one or more memory devices storing executable code that, when executed by the plurality of processing devices, causes the plurality of processing devices to ([0161] Various components, functional units, and/or modules illustrated in FIGS. 1-3 and/or illustrated or described elsewhere in this disclosure may perform operations described using software, hardware, firmware, or a mixture of hardware, software, and firmware residing in and/or executing at one or more computing devices. For example, a computing device may execute one or more of such modules with multiple processors or multiple devices. A computing device may execute one or more of such modules as a virtual machine executing on underlying hardware. One or more of such modules may execute as one or more services of an operating system or computing platform. One or more of such modules may execute as one or more executable programs at an application layer of a computing platform. ): execute a cluster including a first pod implementing a first remote file system server, the first pod having a plurality of storage volumes mounted thereto ((deploy (execute) to a virtualization environment, using a cluster-based framework, a Kubernetes pod 22A having an assigned file system resource of server 12A for customer sites 11 having customer networks coupled to a data center 10 by a service provider network 7 (remote); fig 1; paras [0011], [0053], [0057], [0072]),; ((create a service virtual network and a pod virtual network in theKubernetes cluster where the file system of server 12A is known (enabling access) to pod 22A; fig 1; paras [0059], [0072]); instantiate, in the cluster, a second pod implementing a second remote file system server ((create and
instantiate a second pod 202B in the cluster-based framework, where creating the second pod includes creating virtual network interfaces for the pod and creating containers specified by volume structure with a plurality of volume mounts (second remote file system) of a file system server; fig 2; paras [0067], [0125], [0127], [0128], [0164]); mount at least one storage volume of the plurality of storage volumes to the second remote file system server ((the second pod 202B creating the virtual network interfaces with a plurality of volume mounts of the
file system server; paras [0127], [0128]); and configure the remote file system service to enable access to the at least one storage volume using the second remote file system server server by associating an address for the second remote file system server with an identifier of the at least one storage volume from the identifiers of the plurality of storage volumes. ((a volume and volume mount of the file system server (second} are injected in the second pod
definition (enable access); a container in the pod are specified by a volume structure; paras [0121], [0127]).)
Marriappan does not explicitly teach execute, in the cluster, a remote file system service for enabling access to the first remote file system server, the remote file system service including a mapping between an address for the first remote file system server and identifiers of the plurality of storage volumes;execute, in the cluster, a plurality of application instances configured to access the plurality of storage volumes using the first remote file system server using the remote file system service by accessing the remote file system service to obtain the address for the first remote file system server and mount the plurality of storage volumes.
Krishnamurthy teaches execute, in the cluster, a remote file system service for enabling access to the first remote file system server, the remote file system service including a mapping between an address for the first remote file system server and identifiers of the plurality of storage volumes; ([0030] Certain examples create logical overlay networks such that any two VMs, each being at any arbitrary location in the entire datacenter (and possible across multiple datacenters) can think that they are on the same physical network connected by a single switch between them. Such a logical overlay network is implemented by a network tunnel that is established between the hosts on which the two VMs reside. When the first VM sends out a packet to the second VM, its L2 header is encapsulated by an L3 header addressed to the second host, and then another L2 header for the first hop towards that second host. The destination host then decapsulates the packet and gives the inner, original packet to the second VM. )execute, in the cluster, a plurality of application instances configured to access the plurality of storage volumes using the first remote file system server using the remote file system service by accessing the remote file system service to obtain the address for the first remote file system server and mount the plurality of storage volumes.(0043] In some examples disclosed herein, a lighter-weight virtualization is employed by using containers in place of the VMs 114 in the development environment 112. Example containers 114a are software constructs that run on top of a host operating system without the need for a hypervisor or a separate guest operating system. Unlike virtual machines, the containers 114a do not instantiate their own operating systems. Like virtual machines, the containers 114a are logically separate from one another. Numerous containers can run on a single computer, processor system and/or in the same development environment 112. Also like virtual machines, the containers 114a can execute instances of applications or programs (e.g., an example application 102a) separate from application/program instances executed by the other containers in the same development environment 112.
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the
effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Mariappan to include execute, in the cluster, a remote file system service for enabling access to the first remote file system server, the remote file system service including a mapping between an address for the first remote file system server and identifiers of the plurality of storage volumes;execute, in the cluster, a plurality of application instances configured to access the plurality of storage volumes using the first remote file system server using the remote file system service by accessing the remote file system service to obtain the address for the first remote file system server and mount the plurality of storage volumes as taught by Krishnamurthy. It would
be advantageous to achieve pain-free installation/operation and optimizing the resources for improved performance as taught by Krishnamurthy [0026].
Regarding claim 2, Mariappan in view of Krishnamurthy teaches The apparatus of claim 1, Mariappan further teaches wherein the first and second remote file servers are network file system (NFS) servers. (the pods 202A, 202B comprising file system servers performing operations for a network controller [0135])
Regarding claim 3, Mariappan in view of Krishnamurthy teaches The apparatus of claim 1, Mariappan further teaches wherein the executable code, when executed by the plurality of processing devices, further causes the plurality of processing devices to: call a container runtime interface to instantiate the second remote file system server and a container executing the second remote file system server (invoke (call) a received command from a container runtime to add (instantiate) a container (second) specified by the volume structure with a plurality of volumes and the volume mount in the container [0071] and [0100].
Regarding claim 4, Mariappan in view of Krishnamurthy teaches The apparatus of claim 3, Mariappan further teaches wherein the executable code, when executed by the plurality of processing devices, further causes the plurality of processing devices to: receive, by the container runtime interface, configuration data from an orchestrator (a runtime executable is used by a container orchestration system to configure a network interface into a container network namespace (data) [0010]); and configure the first remote file system server and the container according to the configuration data (configure the container with an accessible volume directory specified by a volume directory structure [0010], [0127-0128].
Regarding claim 5, Mariappan in view of Krishnamurthy teaches The apparatus of claim 4, Mariappan further teaches wherein the configuration data includes an address for the first remote file system server. (network configuration data includes an asigined virtual network address for the server [0068][0072] and [0082])
Regarding claim 6, Mariappan in view of Krishnamurthy teaches The apparatus of claim 1, Mariappan further teaches wherein the configuration data includes an address for the remote file system service. (an address is assigned (configuration data) for all pods, the pods having an assigned file system resource [0059][0072])
Regarding claim 7, Mariappan in view of Krishnamurthy teaches The apparatus of claim 4, Mariappan further teaches wherein the container runtime interface is an agent of the orchestrator. (a container runtime is invoked by the orchestrator [0081])
Regarding claim 8, Mariappan in view of Krishnamurthy teaches The apparatus of claim 1, Mariappan further teaches wherein the remote file system service is a construct within an internal network of the cluster. ((switch fabric 13 of servers 12A-12X with assigned file system resources are coupled to top of rack switches 16A-16N(interna lnetwork) in a cluster based framework; fig1;paras[0029],[0030],[0053))
Regarding claim 9, Mariappan in view of Krishnamurthy teaches The apparatus of claim 1, Mariappan further teaches wherein the cluster is a KUBERNETES cluster. (see the Kubernetes cluster in [0056])
Regarding claim 10, Mariappan in view of Krishnamurthy teaches The apparatus of claim 1, Mariappan further teaches wherein the computer system comprises a first host and a second host (data center10 (computersystem) includes servers/hosts12(first and second);fig1;para[0029]), the first remote file system server executing on the first host and the second remote file system server executing on the second host. ((one server 12A hosts one virtual network endpoint in the form of a pod 22A having one or more
containers;servers12X(second) comprises the second virtual network endpoint and pod having containers;fig1;para[0029}).
Claims 11-12 and 14-20 are rejected using similar reasoning seen in the rejection of claims 1-10 above due to reciting similar limitations but directed towards a method.
Regarding claim 13, Mariappan in view of Krishnamurthy teaches The apparatus of claim 11, Mariappan further teaches further comprising calling, by the computer system, a container runtime interface to instantiate the second remote file system server and a container executing the second remote file system server (invoke (call) a received command from a container runtime to add (instantiate) a container (second) specified by the volume structure with a plurality of volumes and the volume mount in the container [0071] and [0100], the at least one storage volume being mounted to the container. (the volume mount in the container; para[0121]).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/S.C.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2165
/ALEKSANDR KERZHNER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2165