DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
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 1-2, 4-9, 11-16, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Delcheva et al. (hereinafter Delcheva) (US 2018/0159721 A1) in view of Derryberry et al. (hereinafter Derryberry) (US 2024/0045598 A1).
As to claim 1, Delcheva teaches a method of deploying an agent platform (Application Director 106 and/or Cloud Manager 138) on an agent platform appliance (Virtual Appliance 320), wherein the agent platform connects management appliances (Component Servers/VMs 114/Containers 114a) to cloud services executing on a cloud platform (Cloud Provider 110 with VMs 114, containers 114a, deployment environments 112) (Abstract; Figs. 1 and 3), the method comprising:
initiating (via Trigger 601) a sequence of steps to deploy (Deploy Installation Wizard 602; deploy first virtual appliance 802) the agent platform on the agent platform appliance (vA 320, vA 322) ([0081]; [0055]; Figs. 6 and 8);
executing (via Distributed Execution Manager(s) 146A and/or 146B) the sequence of steps up to a particular checkpoint (snapshot/recovery point 630), and continuing execution of the sequence of steps beyond the particular checkpoint (installation 632 occurs) ([0071]; [0092]) (Figs. 1, 6, and 8);
during the continued execution of the sequence of steps beyond the particular checkpoint, detecting an error (Validation Fail 626 after snapshot/recovery point 630; Error detection 812/826 and results are reported back to be used for further processing) ([0070]; [0091]; [0055]; Fig. 6);
determining that the detected error is a recoverable error (ERROR? 812 -> YES, then FIXABLE? 814 -> YES, then FIX) (Fig. 8); and
in response to the determining that the detected error is a recoverable error (if determined that that error is FIXABLE 814, then AUTOMATICALLY FIX ERROR 816), resuming execution of the sequence of steps (EXECUTE INSTALLATION 830) from the particular checkpoint (Snapshot/Recovery Point 630) (Figs. 6 and 8).
While Delcheva discloses snapshots/checkpoints and error detection/resolution, it only implies that execution resumes from the checkpoint after an error is resolved. Delcheva does not explicitly disclose resuming execution of the sequence of steps from the checkpoint after error recovery.
However, Derryberry explicitly teaches the ability to recover to the most recent resumable checkpoint following many different types of failures ([0088]; [0247]-[0248]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the application for Delcheva’s usage of a snapshot/recovery point in error handling to be able to resume execution of sequence steps from a particular checkpoint, such as taught in Derryberry. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to provide the predicted result of being more efficient by resuming to the most recent resumable checkpoint instead of starting over at the beginning.
As to claim 2, Delcheva teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the particular checkpoint is one of a plurality of checkpoints, which are reached upon: (1) verifying that the agent platform appliance is able to communicate with the cloud platform with a latency that is below a threshold, (2) creating an authentication account to be used for acquiring access tokens for authenticating with the cloud services, (3) registering the agent platform appliance with the cloud platform to enable the agent platform appliance to acquire the access tokens via the authentication account, and (4) downloading agents to be installed on the agent platform appliance (downloading installers/software components/agents to be installed) ([0033; [0077]; [0054]).
As to claim 4, Delcheva (download requests for installers, service packs, and packages; error detection during download/installation of packages and service packs) ([0033]; [0054]; [0077]; [0066]-[0068]; [0088]-[0091]) in view of Derryberry (making a request from a storage appliance/agent to a cloud/virtualized environment for images of virtual machines; snapshots of a VM; download errors when requesting/storing VM images) ([0029]; [0047]; [0154]; [0198]) teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the sequence of steps includes transmitting a first request to the cloud platform for images of agents, and the detected error is an error with downloading at least one of the images of the agents.
As to claim 5, Delcheva (resuming execution from recovery points/checkpoints after failure and retrying after errors) ([0071]; Figs 6 and 8) in view of Derryberry (if a download error occurs recover to the most resumable checkpoint) ([0088]; [0247]-[0248]; [0154]; [0198]) teaches the method of claim 4, further comprising: upon the resuming of execution of the sequence of steps from the particular checkpoint, transmitting a second request to the cloud platform for the at least one of the images of the agents.
As to claim 6, Delcheva teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the sequence of steps includes transmitting a first request to the cloud platform for a code (code that contains certificates/identifiers/tokens) to be used for registering the agent platform appliance with the cloud platform and includes transmitting the code to the cloud platform (certificate/identifier/token used for registering and authenticating the management agent/appliance with the virtual appliance, and ultimately, the cloud manager), and the detected error is an error with either acquiring the code from the cloud platform or transmitting the code to the cloud platform (errors in prerequisite checks or failed authentication of credentials/registration) ([0055]; [0061]; [0066]-[0068]; [0083]-[0084]).
As to claim 7, Delcheva teaches the method of claim 6, further comprising: upon the resuming of execution of the sequence of steps from the particular checkpoint, transmitting a second request (repeat) to the cloud platform for another code to be used for registering the agent platform appliance with the cloud platform (if validation failed, repeat data entry 618 and repeat validation at 622 and/or error resolution) ([0070]; [0090]; [0066]).
As to claim 8, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 1.
As to claim 9, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 2.
As to claim 11, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 4.
As to claim 12, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 5.
As to claim 13, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 6.
As to claim 14, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 7.
As to claim 15, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 1.
As to claim 16, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 2.
As to claim 18, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 4.
As to claim 19, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 5.
As to claim 20, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claims 6 and 7.
Claims 3, 10, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Delcheva in view of Lin et al. (hereinafter Lin) (US 2019/0068622 A1).
As to claim 3, Delcheva teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: upon the resuming of execution of the sequence of steps from the particular checkpoint, verifying that the agent platform appliance is able to communicate with the cloud platform (Figs 6 and 8).
Delcheva does not teach its verifying being based on a latency that is below a threshold.
However, Lin explicitly teaches latency thresholds being monitored for API calls between appliance and cloud manager (operators are alerted if a latency metric on manager API calls has exceeded some predetermined threshold) ([0086]-[0090]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the application to modify Delcheva such that it would evaluate if latency is below a threshold. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to provide the predicted result of preventing performance degradation, service unreliability, and/or improved health (Lin: [0093]; [0044]).
As to claim 10, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 3.
As to claim 17, it is rejected for the same reasons as stated in the rejection of claim 3.
Conclusion
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/KENNETH TANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2197