DETAILED ACTION
In response to communication filed on 04 November 2025, claims 2, 4-5, 9-10 and 12-13 are amended. Claims 1, 7, 15 and 23 are canceled. Claims 2-6, 8-14, 16-22 and 24-31 are pending.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 04 November 2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments “Claim Objections”, filed 04 November 2025, have been carefully considered and based on the amendments, the claim objections have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments “Patentability over the References”, filed 04 November 2025, have been carefully considered. The arguments are not considered to be persuasive since those arguments are related to newly added claim limitations are addressed in the rejection below.
Claim Interpretation
Claims 26, 28 and 30 recites “using a single query”. These claim limitations appear to be citing intended use in terms of what the single query is used for. Examiner suggests amending the claim to recite the functionality performed by the claimed method, instead of reciting what the claim elements are used for.
Claim Objections
Claim 30 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 30 recite “wherein wherein the metadata is retrieved using a single query” should read as -- wherein .
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 2-4, 6, 10-12, 14, 18-20, 22, 27, 29 and 31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aron et al. (US 9,009,106 B1, hereinafter “Aron”) in view of Grider (US 10,949,387 B1, hereinafter “Grider”) further in view of Ishii (US 2013/0124503 A1, hereinafter “Ishii”).
Regarding claim 2, Aron teaches
A system comprising: (see Aron, [col 9 line 44] “a storage management system for a virtualization environment”).
a plurality of host machines, (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of Fig. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; Fig. 8 – server elements 700a and 700b are interpreted as host machines) each host machine configured to host at least one file server virtual machine (FSVM) to provide a plurality of FSVMs, the plurality of FSVMs configured (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of Fig. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col 10 lines 51-55] “A special VM 710a/710b is used to manage storage and I/0 activities… which is referred to herein as a "Service VM". The Service VMs 710a/710b implements a storage controller in user space on the various servers 710a and 710b”; Fig. 8 – 710a and 710b have been interpreted as file server virtual machines on server machines 700a and 700b respectively) to form a virtualized file server (VFS); (see Aron, [col 10 lines 30-31] “an architecture for implementing storage management in a virtualization environment”; Fig. 8).
the VFS configured to… (see Aron, [col 10 lines 30-31] “an architecture for implementing storage management in a virtualization environment”; Fig. 8) include storage items,… (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”) storage items including one or more distributed file shares,… (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”) the plurality of host machines, each host machine storing information (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of Fig. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; Fig. 8 – server elements 700a and 700b are interpreted as host machines; [col 10 lines 33-34] “a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage. The multiple tiers of storage includes storage that is accessible through a network 140”).
wherein the VFS is configured to: (see Aron, [col 10 lines 30-31] “an architecture for implementing storage management in a virtualization environment”; Fig. 8).
… of a distributed file share (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”).
retrieve the metadata… (see Aron, [col 19 lines 1-2] “To improve read access to the metadata, optimizations can be made to avoid excessive reading of the metadata maps”) of the distributed file share, (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”).
Aron does not explicitly teach provide a namespace of storage items, the namespace of storage items; each distributed file share having a plurality of directories and having an associated folder hierarchy in which files are stored, the files being distributed across the plurality of host machines, each host machine storing metadata associated with the plurality of directories; receive a request, associated with a requestor, to enumerate the plurality of directories of the distributed file share of the namespace; retrieve the metadata associated with the plurality of directories of the distributed file share, the metadata including permissions information for each of the plurality of directories; and respond to the request with an enumeration of directories, wherein the enumeration of directories is based on a comparison of the requestor's access controls with the metadata.
However, Grider discloses enumeration operations and teaches
provide a namespace of storage… (see Grider, [col 8 lines 31-37] “The number N of namespaces in filesystem 100 can be any number… the number N of namespaces can be varied dynamically over the lifetime of filesystem 100, with primary metadata servers added, removed, or migrated using either hot or cold provisioning, virtual machine”; [col 8 lines 8-30] “shows a storage layer of filesystem 100. Storage repositories 140a-140g provide storage for data objects incorporating the data contents of files that are part of filesystem 100… the single repository 140d can store data objects from multiple namespaces, and the entries 130f and 130i on a single metadata server can be associated with data objects on distinct repositories”) the namespace of storage… (see Grider, [col 8 lines 31-37] “The number N of namespaces in filesystem 100 can be any number… the number N of namespaces can be varied dynamically over the lifetime of filesystem 100, with primary metadata servers added, removed, or migrated using either hot or cold provisioning, virtual machine”; [col 8 lines 8-30] “shows a storage layer of filesystem 100. Storage repositories 140a-140g provide storage for data objects incorporating the data contents of files that are part of filesystem 100… the single repository 140d can store data objects from multiple namespaces, and the entries 130f and 130i on a single metadata server can be associated with data objects on distinct repositories”) each distributed file share having a plurality of directories and having an associated folder hierarchy in which files are stored, the files being distributed across plurality of servers (see Grider, [col 7 lines 16-66] “NAMESPACE_1 105-1, a primary file metadata server 110-0 maintains a hierarchical directory subtree of NAMESPACE_1 105-1 having a subtree root node at the top level directory entry PROJECT_1 120r… a tree of directories is organized: two directories 120a, 120b are at a depth of one, another directory 120aa is at depth of two, under directory 120a, followed by two directories 120aaa and 120aab at a depth of three, and 120aaaa at a depth of four… the directory 120aaaa contains three files, having respective entries 130g, 130h, 130i, while another directory 120a contains just one file 130a… The total numbers of files and directories can individually be as great as 1,000… or even higher… file metadata server 110-1 contains directory entries for three files or other objects 130a, 130c, and 130g. File metadata servers 110-2 and 110-M respectively contain entries for { 130b 130e 130h} and { 130d 130/130i} respectively… reasonably well balanced distributions of file directory entries among file metadata servers”; [col 8 lines 15-23] “the file whose directory entry is 130g has its contents stored in storage object 150b in repository 140a; storage object 150b is dubbed a unitary object, containing data of a single file. Two files having respective directory entries 130h and 130i have their contents stored in a packed data object 150c in object repository 140b. The file having directory entry 131g has its contents spread among multiple objects 151a, 151b, and 151c on respective repositories 140d, 140e, and 140”; [col 8 lines 48-54] “Any combination of the primary metadata server and file metadata servers of a single namespace can be co-located in a single tray, in a single rack, in a single cabinet, in a single datacenter, or they can be distributed among zero or more each of trays, racks, cabinets, clusters, supercomputers, datacenters, or clouds”) store metadata associated with the plurality of directories; (see Grider, [col 6 lines 56-60] “a metadata server is one or more processors, with memory and storage attached thereto, and configured to execute software instructions to manage metadata of a file system such as directory entries for files and directories”).
receive a request, associated with a requestor, to enumerate the plurality of directories… (see Grider, [col 19 lines 49-55] “a client can make a single augmented or basic enumeration request, and receive a single output object (which can be a record, a file, a stream, a data structure, or a single atomic item) instead of separate output objects from each sharded metadata server. Thus the disclosed technology and implementation of enumeration functions can be completely transparent to a requesting client”; [col 5 lines 31-36] “an enumeration function is distributive: performing an enumeration function on (or enumerating) a target directory or a group of target directories or a group of objects implies enumerating (or performing the enumeration function on) each object within the target directory or group of target directories or group of objects”) of the namespace, that are distributed (see Grider, [col 12 lines 47-49] “method for enumerating objects in a target directory of a file system or namespace”; [col 7 lines 58-59] “The directory entries 130a-130i are distributed, or sharded”; [col 8 lines 31-37] “The number N of namespaces in filesystem 100 can be any number… the number N of namespaces can be varied dynamically over the lifetime of filesystem 100, with primary metadata servers added, removed, or migrated using either hot or cold provisioning, virtual machine”; [col 8 lines 8-30] “shows a storage layer of filesystem 100. Storage repositories 140a-140g provide storage for data objects incorporating the data contents of files that are part of filesystem 100… the single repository 140d can store data objects from multiple namespaces, and the entries 130f and 130i on a single metadata server can be associated with data objects on distinct repositories”).
access metadata associated with the plurality of directories being distributed (see Grider, [col 10 lines 5-7] “file metadata server 110-1 uses its initialized pointer or index to access a metadata entry of the target directory”; [col 6 lines 56-60] “a metadata server is one or more processors, with memory and storage attached thereto, and configured to execute software instructions to manage metadata of a file system such as directory entries for files and directories”; [col 7 lines 58-59] “The directory entries 130a-130i are distributed, or sharded”; [col 5 lines 31-36] “an enumeration function is distributive: performing an enumeration function on (or enumerating) a target directory or a group of target directories or a group of objects implies enumerating (or performing the enumeration function on) each object within the target directory or group of target directories or group of objects”) the metadata including permissions information for each of the plurality of directories; and (see Grider, [col 20 line 64 – col 21 line 9] “A metadata entry of a file object can be a representation of a file object in the file system or directory structure. Object representations and metadata entries for an object can include one or more properties of the object, such as access permissions of the object, attributes of the object… type of the object”; [col 5 lines 63-65] “a metadata entry is a data structure containing information about a file, directory, or other object in a filesystem”; [col 16 lines 27-31] “there can also be an action of checking that the addition operation is permissible. Reasons why an addition operation can be disallowed include: permissions of a client, permissions of the parent directory, lack of space, a duplicated entry, or invalid arguments”).
respond to the request with an enumeration of directories, wherein the enumeration of directories is based on augmentation features (see Grider, [col 17 lines 29-40] “an enumeration function can be implemented with a sort argument so that results are returned to a requesting client in a particular order… Augmentation features can be combined, so that a single augmented enumeration request can implement both filtering and sorting, or multiple filters, or multiple levels of sorting, or any other combination of augmentation features”; [col 5 lines 19-21] “In this disclosure, the term "enumeration" refers to any metadata task that requires traversal of at least a subset of all entries of a directory”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the functionality of namespace, enumeration, metadata including permissions, plurality of directories, forming a distributed file system, response and directory with folder hierarchy as being disclosed and taught by Grider in the system taught by Aron to yield the predictable results of optimizing reading and writing of file contents and developing scalable implementations of such operations (see Grider, [col 1 lines 25-34] “Considerable effort has gone into developing tools for large storage systems, including distributed file systems and parallel file systems. Much of the effort has been spent on developing efficiency on the data side of storage operations, for example optimizing reading and writing of file contents and developing scalable implementations of such operations”).
The proposed combination of Aron and Grider does not explicitly teach a comparison of the requestor's access controls with the metadata.
However, Ishii discloses file server and teaches
a comparison of the requestor's access controls with the metadata (see Ishii, [0049] “accepts a file access request from a user”; [0087] “since the collection of access control information set in the directory becomes easy and a qualification of the searched result based on an access right in the search request from the user becomes possible… it is required that access control information such as ACL (Access Control List) for the updated target file and directory is acquired separately since the qualification for the searched result is checked on the basis of the access right of search user when using a file-sharing”; [0156]-[0157] “The access control information 8284 stores access control information set in the directory. For example, it may store permission bit information, used for the access control, set in the directory and ACL information, etc. The metadata 8285 stores various metadata information set in the directory… both the access control information and metadata set in the directory for storing the updated target file can be acquired, compared with the file data and metadata acquisition processing”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the functionality of comparison of metadata and access controls along with directory access control list as being disclosed and taught by Ishii in the system taught by the proposed combination of Aron and Grider to yield the predictable results of efficiently processing the data based on metadata (see Ishii, [0160] “the search server 1100 can acquire necessary information for the index update for the metadata of the parent directory and ancestry directory for storing the updated target file, without individually acquiring these from the Tier 2 file server 3100, so that an efficient processing can be carried out”).
Regarding claim 10, Aron teaches
At least one non-transitory computer readable media encoded with instructions, which, when executed, (see Aron, [col20 lines17-20] “The term "computer readable medium" or "computer usable medium" as used herein refers to any medium that participates in providing instructions to processor 1407 for execution”) cause a virtualized file server (VFS) to perform actions, the actions including: (see Aron, [col 10 lines 30-31] “an architecture for implementing storage management in a virtualization environment”; Fig. 8; [col 3 lines 39-40] “This action may be performed by”).
… of a distributed file share (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”) of storage items, (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”) the VFS configured to… (see Aron, [col 10 lines 30-31] “an architecture for implementing storage management in a virtualization environment”; Fig. 8) include storage items including one or more distributed file shares,… (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”) the plurality of host machines, each host machine storing information (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of Fig. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; Fig. 8 – server elements 700a and 700b are interpreted as host machines; [col 10 lines 33-34] “a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage. The multiple tiers of storage includes storage that is accessible through a network 140”).
retrieve the metadata… (see Aron, [col 19 lines 1-2] “To improve read access to the metadata, optimizations can be made to avoid excessive reading of the metadata maps”) of the distributed file share (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”).
Aaron does not explicitly teach receive a request, associated with a requestor to enumerate a plurality of directories of a distributed file share of a namespace; provide the namespace, the name space of storage items, each distributed file share having a plurality of directories and having an associated folder hierarchy in which files are stored, the files being distributed across the plurality of host machines, each host machine storing metadata associated with the plurality of directories; retrieve the metadata associated with the plurality of directories of the distributed file share, the metadata including permissions information for each of the plurality of directories; and respond to the request with an enumeration of directories, wherein the enumeration of directories is based on a comparison of the requestor's access controls with the metadata.
However, Grider discloses enumeration operations and teaches
receive a request, associated with a requestor to enumerate a plurality of directories (see Grider, [col 19 lines 49-55] “a client can make a single augmented or basic enumeration request, and receive a single output object (which can be a record, a file, a stream, a data structure, or a single atomic item) instead of separate output objects from each sharded metadata server. Thus the disclosed technology and implementation of enumeration functions can be completely transparent to a requesting client”; [col 5 lines 31-36] “an enumeration function is distributive: performing an enumeration function on (or enumerating) a target directory or a group of target directories or a group of objects implies enumerating (or performing the enumeration function on) each object within the target directory or group of target directories or group of objects”) of a namespace, of storage (see Grider, [col 12 lines 47-49] “method for enumerating objects in a target directory of a file system or namespace”; [col 7 lines 58-59] “The directory entries 130a-130i are distributed, or sharded”; [col 8 lines 31-37] “The number N of namespaces in filesystem 100 can be any number… the number N of namespaces can be varied dynamically over the lifetime of filesystem 100, with primary metadata servers added, removed, or migrated using either hot or cold provisioning, virtual machine”; [col 8 lines 8-30] “shows a storage layer of filesystem 100. Storage repositories 140a-140g provide storage for data objects incorporating the data contents of files that are part of filesystem 100… the single repository 140d can store data objects from multiple namespaces, and the entries 130f and 130i on a single metadata server can be associated with data objects on distinct repositories”) provide the namespace, the name space of storage (see Grider, [col 8 lines 31-37] “The number N of namespaces in filesystem 100 can be any number… the number N of namespaces can be varied dynamically over the lifetime of filesystem 100, with primary metadata servers added, removed, or migrated using either hot or cold provisioning, virtual machine”; [col 8 lines 8-30] “shows a storage layer of filesystem 100. Storage repositories 140a-140g provide storage for data objects incorporating the data contents of files that are part of filesystem 100… the single repository 140d can store data objects from multiple namespaces, and the entries 130f and 130i on a single metadata server can be associated with data objects on distinct repositories”) each distributed file share having a plurality of directories and having an associated folder hierarchy in which files are stored, the files being distributed across plurality of servers (see Grider, [col 7 lines 16-66] “NAMESPACE_1 105-1, a primary file metadata server 110-0 maintains a hierarchical directory subtree of NAMESPACE_1 105-1 having a subtree root node at the top level directory entry PROJECT_1 120r… a tree of directories is organized: two directories 120a, 120b are at a depth of one, another directory 120aa is at depth of two, under directory 120a, followed by two directories 120aaa and 120aab at a depth of three, and 120aaaa at a depth of four… the directory 120aaaa contains three files, having respective entries 130g, 130h, 130i, while another directory 120a contains just one file 130a… The total numbers of files and directories can individually be as great as 1,000… or even higher… file metadata server 110-1 contains directory entries for three files or other objects 130a, 130c, and 130g. File metadata servers 110-2 and 110-M respectively contain entries for { 130b 130e 130h} and { 130d 130/130i} respectively… reasonably well balanced distributions of file directory entries among file metadata servers”; [col 8 lines 15-23] “the file whose directory entry is 130g has its contents stored in storage object 150b in repository 140a; storage object 150b is dubbed a unitary object, containing data of a single file. Two files having respective directory entries 130h and 130i have their contents stored in a packed data object 150c in object repository 140b. The file having directory entry 131g has its contents spread among multiple objects 151a, 151b, and 151c on respective repositories 140d, 140e, and 140”; [col 8 lines 48-54] “Any combination of the primary metadata server and file metadata servers of a single namespace can be co-located in a single tray, in a single rack, in a single cabinet, in a single datacenter, or they can be distributed among zero or more each of trays, racks, cabinets, clusters, supercomputers, datacenters, or clouds”) store metadata associated with the plurality of directories; (see Grider, [col 6 lines 56-60] “a metadata server is one or more processors, with memory and storage attached thereto, and configured to execute software instructions to manage metadata of a file system such as directory entries for files and directories”).
access metadata associated with the plurality of directories being distributed (see Grider, [col 10 lines 5-7] “file metadata server 110-1 uses its initialized pointer or index to access a metadata entry of the target directory”; [col 6 lines 56-60] “a metadata server is one or more processors, with memory and storage attached thereto, and configured to execute software instructions to manage metadata of a file system such as directory entries for files and directories”; [col 7 lines 58-59] “The directory entries 130a-130i are distributed, or sharded”; [col 5 lines 31-36] “an enumeration function is distributive: performing an enumeration function on (or enumerating) a target directory or a group of target directories or a group of objects implies enumerating (or performing the enumeration function on) each object within the target directory or group of target directories or group of objects”) the metadata including permissions information for each of the plurality of directories; and (see Grider, [col 20 line 64 – col 21 line 9] “A metadata entry of a file object can be a representation of a file object in the file system or directory structure. Object representations and metadata entries for an object can include one or more properties of the object, such as access permissions of the object, attributes of the object… type of the object”; [col 5 lines 63-65] “a metadata entry is a data structure containing information about a file, directory, or other object in a filesystem”; [col 16 lines 27-31] “there can also be an action of checking that the addition operation is permissible. Reasons why an addition operation can be disallowed include: permissions of a client, permissions of the parent directory, lack of space, a duplicated entry, or invalid arguments”).
respond to the request with an enumeration of directories, wherein the enumeration of directories is based on augmentation features (see Grider, [col 17 lines 29-40] “an enumeration function can be implemented with a sort argument so that results are returned to a requesting client in a particular order… Augmentation features can be combined, so that a single augmented enumeration request can implement both filtering and sorting, or multiple filters, or multiple levels of sorting, or any other combination of augmentation features”; [col 5 lines 19-21] “In this disclosure, the term "enumeration" refers to any metadata task that requires traversal of at least a subset of all entries of a directory”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the functionality of namespace, enumeration, metadata including permissions, plurality of directories, forming a distributed file system, response and directory with folder hierarchy as being disclosed and taught by Grider in the system taught by Aron to yield the predictable results of optimizing reading and writing of file contents and developing scalable implementations of such operations (see Grider, [col 1 lines 25-34] “Considerable effort has gone into developing tools for large storage systems, including distributed file systems and parallel file systems. Much of the effort has been spent on developing efficiency on the data side of storage operations, for example optimizing reading and writing of file contents and developing scalable implementations of such operations”).
The proposed combination of Aron and Grider does not explicitly teach a comparison of the requestor's access controls with the metadata.
However, Ishii discloses file server and teaches
a comparison of the requestor's access controls with the metadata (see Ishii, [0049] “accepts a file access request from a user”; [0087] “since the collection of access control information set in the directory becomes easy and a qualification of the searched result based on an access right in the search request from the user becomes possible… it is required that access control information such as ACL (Access Control List) for the updated target file and directory is acquired separately since the qualification for the searched result is checked on the basis of the access right of search user when using a file-sharing”; [0156]-[0157] “The access control information 8284 stores access control information set in the directory. For example, it may store permission bit information, used for the access control, set in the directory and ACL information, etc. The metadata 8285 stores various metadata information set in the directory… both the access control information and metadata set in the directory for storing the updated target file can be acquired, compared with the file data and metadata acquisition processing”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the functionality of comparison of metadata and access controls along with directory access control list as being disclosed and taught by Ishii in the system taught by the proposed combination of Aron and Grider to yield the predictable results of efficiently processing the data based on metadata (see Ishii, [0160] “the search server 1100 can acquire necessary information for the index update for the metadata of the parent directory and ancestry directory for storing the updated target file, without individually acquiring these from the Tier 2 file server 3100, so that an efficient processing can be carried out”).
Regarding claim 18, Aron teaches
A method comprising: (see Aron, [col20 lines57] “A computer-implemented method”).
receive, request (see Aron, [col 8 line 29] “a request is received”) at a virtualized file server (VFS),… (see Aron, [col 10 lines 30-31] “an architecture for implementing storage management in a virtualization environment”; Fig. 8) of a distributed file share… (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”) include storage items including one or more distributed file shares,… (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”) the VFS configured to… (see Aron, [col 10 lines 30-31] “an architecture for implementing storage management in a virtualization environment”; Fig. 8) include storage items, (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”) the files being distributed across the plurality of host machines, each host machine storing information (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of Fig. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; Fig. 8 – server elements 700a and 700b are interpreted as host machines; [col 10 lines 33-34] “a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage. The multiple tiers of storage includes storage that is accessible through a network 140”).
retrieving the metadata… (see Aron, [col 19 lines 1-2] “To improve read access to the metadata, optimizations can be made to avoid excessive reading of the metadata maps”) of the distributed file share, (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”).
Aaron does not explicitly teach receive a request, associated with a requestor, to enumerate a plurality of directories of a distributed file share of a namespace of storage items including one or more distributed file shares, each distributed file share having a plurality of directories and having an associated folder hierarchy in which files are stored, provide the namespace of storage items, each host machine storing metadata associated with the plurality of directories; retrieving the metadata associated with the plurality of directories of the distributed file share, the metadata including permissions information for each of the plurality of directories; and responding to the request with an enumeration of directories, wherein the enumeration of directories is based on a comparison of the requestor's access controls with the metadata.
However, Grider discloses enumeration operations and teaches
receive a request, associated with a requestor, to enumerate a plurality of directories (see Grider, [col 19 lines 49-55] “a client can make a single augmented or basic enumeration request, and receive a single output object (which can be a record, a file, a stream, a data structure, or a single atomic item) instead of separate output objects from each sharded metadata server. Thus the disclosed technology and implementation of enumeration functions can be completely transparent to a requesting client”; [col 5 lines 31-36] “an enumeration function is distributive: performing an enumeration function on (or enumerating) a target directory or a group of target directories or a group of objects implies enumerating (or performing the enumeration function on) each object within the target directory or group of target directories or group of objects”) of a namespace of storage (see Grider, [col 12 lines 47-49] “method for enumerating objects in a target directory of a file system or namespace”; [col 7 lines 58-59] “The directory entries 130a-130i are distributed, or sharded”; [col 8 lines 31-37] “The number N of namespaces in filesystem 100 can be any number… the number N of namespaces can be varied dynamically over the lifetime of filesystem 100, with primary metadata servers added, removed, or migrated using either hot or cold provisioning, virtual machine”; [col 8 lines 8-30] “shows a storage layer of filesystem 100. Storage repositories 140a-140g provide storage for data objects incorporating the data contents of files that are part of filesystem 100… the single repository 140d can store data objects from multiple namespaces, and the entries 130f and 130i on a single metadata server can be associated with data objects on distinct repositories”) each distributed file share having a plurality of directories and having an associated folder hierarchy in which files are stored, (see Grider, [col 7 lines 16-66] “NAMESPACE_1 105-1, a primary file metadata server 110-0 maintains a hierarchical directory subtree of NAMESPACE_1 105-1 having a subtree root node at the top level directory entry PROJECT_1 120r… a tree of directories is organized: two directories 120a, 120b are at a depth of one, another directory 120aa is at depth of two, under directory 120a, followed by two directories 120aaa and 120aab at a depth of three, and 120aaaa at a depth of four… the directory 120aaaa contains three files, having respective entries 130g, 130h, 130i, while another directory 120a contains just one file 130a… The total numbers of files and directories can individually be as great as 1,000… or even higher… file metadata server 110-1 contains directory entries for three files or other objects 130a, 130c, and 130g. File metadata servers 110-2 and 110-M respectively contain entries for { 130b 130e 130h} and { 130d 130/130i} respectively… reasonably well balanced distributions of file directory entries among file metadata servers”; [col 8 lines 15-23] “the file whose directory entry is 130g has its contents stored in storage object 150b in repository 140a; storage object 150b is dubbed a unitary object, containing data of a single file. Two files having respective directory entries 130h and 130i have their contents stored in a packed data object 150c in object repository 140b. The file having directory entry 131g has its contents spread among multiple objects 151a, 151b, and 151c on respective repositories 140d, 140e, and 140”; [col 8 lines 48-54] “Any combination of the primary metadata server and file metadata servers of a single namespace can be co-located in a single tray, in a single rack, in a single cabinet, in a single datacenter, or they can be distributed among zero or more each of trays, racks, cabinets, clusters, supercomputers, datacenters, or clouds”) provide the namespace of storage (see Grider, [col 8 lines 31-37] “The number N of namespaces in filesystem 100 can be any number… the number N of namespaces can be varied dynamically over the lifetime of filesystem 100, with primary metadata servers added, removed, or migrated using either hot or cold provisioning, virtual machine”; [col 8 lines 8-30] “shows a storage layer of filesystem 100. Storage repositories 140a-140g provide storage for data objects incorporating the data contents of files that are part of filesystem 100… the single repository 140d can store data objects from multiple namespaces, and the entries 130f and 130i on a single metadata server can be associated with data objects on distinct repositories”) store metadata associated with the plurality of directories; (see Grider, [col 6 lines 56-60] “a metadata server is one or more processors, with memory and storage attached thereto, and configured to execute software instructions to manage metadata of a file system such as directory entries for files and directories”).
access metadata associated with the plurality of directories being distributed (see Grider, [col 10 lines 5-7] “file metadata server 110-1 uses its initialized pointer or index to access a metadata entry of the target directory”; [col 6 lines 56-60] “a metadata server is one or more processors, with memory and storage attached thereto, and configured to execute software instructions to manage metadata of a file system such as directory entries for files and directories”; [col 7 lines 58-59] “The directory entries 130a-130i are distributed, or sharded”; [col 5 lines 31-36] “an enumeration function is distributive: performing an enumeration function on (or enumerating) a target directory or a group of target directories or a group of objects implies enumerating (or performing the enumeration function on) each object within the target directory or group of target directories or group of objects”) the metadata including permissions information for each of the plurality of directories; and (see Grider, [col 20 line 64 – col 21 line 9] “A metadata entry of a file object can be a representation of a file object in the file system or directory structure. Object representations and metadata entries for an object can include one or more properties of the object, such as access permissions of the object, attributes of the object… type of the object”; [col 5 lines 63-65] “a metadata entry is a data structure containing information about a file, directory, or other object in a filesystem”; [col 16 lines 27-31] “there can also be an action of checking that the addition operation is permissible. Reasons why an addition operation can be disallowed include: permissions of a client, permissions of the parent directory, lack of space, a duplicated entry, or invalid arguments”).
responding to the request with an enumeration of directories, wherein the enumeration of directories is based on augmentation features (see Grider, [col 17 lines 29-40] “an enumeration function can be implemented with a sort argument so that results are returned to a requesting client in a particular order… Augmentation features can be combined, so that a single augmented enumeration request can implement both filtering and sorting, or multiple filters, or multiple levels of sorting, or any other combination of augmentation features”; [col 5 lines 19-21] “In this disclosure, the term "enumeration" refers to any metadata task that requires traversal of at least a subset of all entries of a directory”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the functionality of namespace, enumeration, metadata including permissions, plurality of directories, forming a distributed file system, response and directory with folder hierarchy as being disclosed and taught by Grider in the system taught by Aron to yield the predictable results of optimizing reading and writing of file contents and developing scalable implementations of such operations (see Grider, [col 1 lines 25-34] “Considerable effort has gone into developing tools for large storage systems, including distributed file systems and parallel file systems. Much of the effort has been spent on developing efficiency on the data side of storage operations, for example optimizing reading and writing of file contents and developing scalable implementations of such operations”).
The proposed combination of Aron and Grider does not explicitly teach a comparison of the requestor's access controls with the metadata.
However, Ishii discloses file server and teaches
a comparison of the requestor's access controls with the metadata (see Ishii, [0049] “accepts a file access request from a user”; [0087] “since the collection of access control information set in the directory becomes easy and a qualification of the searched result based on an access right in the search request from the user becomes possible… it is required that access control information such as ACL (Access Control List) for the updated target file and directory is acquired separately since the qualification for the searched result is checked on the basis of the access right of search user when using a file-sharing”; [0156]-[0157] “The access control information 8284 stores access control information set in the directory. For example, it may store permission bit information, used for the access control, set in the directory and ACL information, etc. The metadata 8285 stores various metadata information set in the directory… both the access control information and metadata set in the directory for storing the updated target file can be acquired, compared with the file data and metadata acquisition processing”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the functionality of comparison of metadata and access controls along with directory access control list as being disclosed and taught by Ishii in the system taught by the proposed combination of Aron and Grider to yield the predictable results of efficiently processing the data based on metadata (see Ishii, [0160] “the search server 1100 can acquire necessary information for the index update for the metadata of the parent directory and ancestry directory for storing the updated target file, without individually acquiring these from the Tier 2 file server 3100, so that an efficient processing can be carried out”).
Regarding claim 3, the proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii teaches
wherein the plurality of host machines (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of Fig. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; Fig. 8 – server elements 700a and 700b are interpreted as host machines) includes a first host machine configured to provide a first FSVM and wherein the first FSVM is configured to (see Aron, [col10 lines32-35] “The architecture of Fig. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col9 lines59-60] “a host operating system”; [col10 lines51-55] “A special VM 710a/710b is used to manage storage and I/0 activities… which is referred to herein as a "Service VM". The Service VMs 710a/710b implements a storage controller in user space on the various servers 710a and 710b”; Fig. 8 – 710a has been interpreted as first file server virtual machine is on 700a server element is interpreted as first host machine) receive the request to enumerate (see Grider, [col 19 lines 49-55] “a client can make a single augmented or basic enumeration request, and receive a single output object (which can be a record, a file, a stream, a data structure, or a single atomic item) instead of separate output objects from each sharded metadata server. Thus the disclosed technology and implementation of enumeration functions can be completely transparent to a requesting client”) the distributed file share (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”). The motivation for the proposed combination is maintained.
Claims 11 and 19 incorporate substantively all the limitations of claim 3 in a computer readable and method form and are rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding claim 4, the proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii teaches
wherein the metadata associated with the plurality of directories (see Grider, [col 15 lines 27-33] “the file system contains files, while in other examples directory structures and metadata entries described herein can be used to manage and scalably enumerate objects other than files, for example network nodes, and in further examples a file system can manage heterogeneous collections of objects of varying types”) of the distributed file share (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”) is retrieved from a file system (see Grider, [col 14 lines 50-54] “obtaining the index initialized at process block 530, and using this index to initiate the traversal of metadata entries. Each metadata entry represents a corresponding target object of the file system. During traversal, the index obtained from the respective data structure”). The motivation for the proposed combination is maintained.
Claims 12 and 20 incorporate substantively all the limitations of claim 4 in a computer readable and method form and are rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding claim 6, the proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii teaches
wherein file systems hosted on the host machines (see Aron, [col 10 lines 59-63] “Each Service VM 710a-b exports one or more virtual disks that appear as disks to the client VMs 702a-d. This is exposed either as an iSCSI LUN or an NFS file. These disks are virtual, since they are implemented by the software running inside the Service VMs 710a-b”; [col 13 lines 60-61] “the extent groups are implemented as 64 Mbyte size files”; [col 14 lines 15-17] “A first metadata structure (VDisk map 1002) is used to map the VDisk address space for the stored extents”) form a distributed file system (see Grider, [col 20 lines 47-50] “A file system can be one or more of… a distributed file system”; [col 24 lines 8-10] “the disclosed technologies are applicable to any file system, and are particularly beneficial to hierarchical, distributed”).
Claims 14 and 22 incorporate substantively all the limitations of claim 6 in a computer readable and method form and are rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding claim 27, the proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii teaches
wherein the metadata further comprises (see Grider, [col 15 lines 27-33] “the file system contains files, while in other examples directory structures and metadata entries described herein can be used to manage and scalably enumerate objects other than files, for example network nodes, and in further examples a file system can manage heterogeneous collections of objects of varying types”; [col 6 lines 56-60] “a metadata server is one or more processors, with memory and storage attached thereto, and configured to execute software instructions to manage metadata of a file system such as directory entries for files and directories”) a directory access control list (see Ishii, [0087] “it is required that access control information such as ACL (Access Control List) for the updated target file and directory is acquired separately since the qualification for the searched result is checked on the basis of the access right of search user when using a file-sharing”). The motivation for the proposed combination is maintained.
Claims 29 and 31 incorporate substantively all the limitations of claim 27 in a computer readable and method form and are rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 5, 13 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aron, Grider and Ishii in view of Herington (US 2008/0271017 A1, hereinafter “Herington”).
Regarding claim 5, the proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii teaches
… FSVM hosted on the host machine (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of Fig. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col 10 lines 51-55] “A special VM 710a/710b is used to manage storage and I/0 activities… which is referred to herein as a "Service VM". The Service VMs 710a/710b implements a storage controller in user space on the various servers 710a and 710b”; Fig. 8 – 710a and 710b have been interpreted as file server virtual machines on server machines 700a and 700b respectively).
The proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii does not explicitly teach wherein the file system is associated with a respective FSVM.
However, Herington discloses virtual machines and teaches
wherein the file system is associated with a respective virtual machine (see Herington, [0041] “Each virtual machine 102 can be configured to bootstrap load a particular copy of the operating system file systems 114, with a particular copy of the application and data file systems that is separate for each instance”; Fig. 1 – Virtual machine 1 has its associated file system 114).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the functionality of file system associated with virtual machines as being disclosed and taught by Herington in the system taught by the proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii to yield the predictable results of effectively managing a computing system by identifying read-only portions of a file system, sharing the read-only portions of the file system among a plurality of virtual machines, and managing the shared read-only portions of the file system as a single unit (see Herington, [0004] “managing a computing system comprises identifying read-only portions of a file system, sharing the read-only portions of the file system among a plurality of virtual machines, and managing the shared read-only portions of the file system as a single unit”).
Claims 13 and 21 incorporate substantively all the limitations of claim 5 in a computer readable and method form and are rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 8-9, 16-17 and 24-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aron, Grider and Ishii in view of Choudhari et al. (US 2018/0225204 A1, hereinafter “Choudhari”).
Regarding claim 8, the proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii teaches
wherein the VFS is further configured to… (see Aron, [col 10 lines 30-31] “an architecture for implementing storage management in a virtualization environment”; Fig. 8) caching permissions for the metadata (see Grider, [col 23 lines 42-48] “the directory was checked for insertion permissions, and this permission was cached at each client after the first check… At the directory metadata server, a hash on the filename was performed to determine which file metadata server to route the open request”).
The proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii does not explicitly teach allocate a buffer for the metadata.
However, Choudhari discloses data sharing and teaches
allocate a buffer for the metadata (see Choudhari, [0100] “memory for a metadata list 504 and a buffer pool 506 are allocated as part of the boot-up process… one contiguous physical memory region may be allocated for the metadata list 504 and the buffer pool 506”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the functionality of allocating a buffer and iterating in a buffer as being disclosed and taught by Choudhari in the system taught by the proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii to yield the predictable results of improving efficiency and robustness for sharing data across different users, agents, processes, drivers, and applications in a system (see Choudhari, [Abstract] “Systems, methods, apparatus and computer-readable medium are described for improving efficiency and robustness for sharing data across different users, agents, processes, drivers, and applications in a system”).
Claims 16 and 24 incorporate substantively all the limitations of claim 8 in a computer readable and method form and are rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding claim 9, the proposed combination of Aron, Grider, Ishii and Choudhari teaches
wherein the VFS is further configured to (see Aron, [col 10 lines 30-31] “an architecture for implementing storage management in a virtualization environment”; Fig. 8) iterate over entries of metadata in the buffer (see Choudhari, [0113] “The index for the allocated buffer from the pool may be used for indexing into the respective metadata list associated with the selected pool… the metadata list is a linked list and the free buffer is determined by iterating through the linked list”) to build a response to the request to enumerate (see Grider, [col 17 lines 29-40] “an enumeration function can be implemented with a sort argument so that results are returned to a requesting client in a particular order… Augmentation features can be combined, so that a single augmented enumeration request can implement both filtering and sorting, or multiple filters, or multiple levels of sorting, or any other combination of augmentation features”; [col 5 lines 19-21] “In this disclosure, the term "enumeration" refers to any metadata task that requires traversal of at least a subset of all entries of a directory”) the distributed file share (see Aron, [col 10 lines 32-35] “The architecture of FIG. 8 can be implemented for a distributed platform that contains multiple servers 700a and 700b that manages multiple-tiers of storage”; [col10 lines56-58] “a distributed system 710 that manages all the storage resources, including the locally attached storage”) of the namespace (see Grider, [col 12 lines 47-49] “method for enumerating objects in a target directory of a file system or namespace”; [col 7 lines 58-59] “The directory entries 130a-130i are distributed, or sharded”). The motivation for the proposed combination is maintained.
Claims 17 and 25 incorporate substantively all the limitations of claim 9 in a computer readable and method form and are rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 26, 28 and 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Aron, Grider and Ishii in view of Skyrm et al. (US 2008/0168154 A1, hereinafter “Skyrm”).
Regarding claim 26, the proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii teaches
wherein the metadata for multiple directories (see Grider, [col 15 lines 27-33] “the file system contains files, while in other examples directory structures and metadata entries described herein can be used to manage and scalably enumerate objects other than files, for example network nodes, and in further examples a file system can manage heterogeneous collections of objects of varying types”; [col 6 lines 56-60] “a metadata server is one or more processors, with memory and storage attached thereto, and configured to execute software instructions to manage metadata of a file system such as directory entries for files and directories”) is retrieved (see Grider, [col 6 lines 33-40] “to each file metadata server to read each file metadata server's directory entries in parallel. The serial process is suspended until some or all of the parallel tasks have completed. Each parallel task is provided with its respective temporary structure within the array of temporary structures. Each file metadata server processes its respective task to read its own directory entries serially in a loop, via iterated calls to a ReadDirectory( ) function”).
The proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii does not explicitly teach the metadata for multiple directories is retrieved using a single query.
However, Skyrm discloses search queries and teaches
using a single query to search within plurality of directories in a file system (see Skyrm, [0082] “the following search query may be sent to the operating system to search for files (e.g., for attributes and/or tags associated with the files) on a desktop, a file system, within a plurality of directories in a file system”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the functionality of single query as being disclosed and taught by Skyrm in the system taught by the proposed combination of Aron, Grider and Ishii to yield the predictable results of effectively retrieving information (see Skyrm, [0025] “the term "retrieving" refers to the process of sending a request for information, and receiving the information. The request may include a search query, an identifier for the information, or the like. As used herein, the term "searching" refers to providing a query based on at least one criteria. The criteria may include a search term, a name, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), a date/timestamp, a part or combination thereof, or the like”).
Claims 28 and 30 incorporate substantively all the limitations of claim 26 in a computer readable and method form and are rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
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/VAISHALI SHAH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2156