Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/195,851

HEALTH MONITORING ARCHITECTURE FOR MULTI-TENANT SYSTEM

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
May 10, 2023
Examiner
NAHRA, SELENA SABAH
Art Unit
2192
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
VMware, Inc.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
75%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
3y 1m
To Grant
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 75% — above average
75%
Career Allow Rate
12 granted / 16 resolved
+20.0% vs TC avg
Strong +67% interview lift
Without
With
+66.7%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 1m
Avg Prosecution
12 currently pending
Career history
28
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
22.0%
-18.0% vs TC avg
§103
42.4%
+2.4% vs TC avg
§102
13.6%
-26.4% vs TC avg
§112
19.5%
-20.5% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 16 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . Priority Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55. Information Disclosure Statement The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on August 24, 2023 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner. Drawings The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they include the following reference character is not mentioned in the description: 860. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d), or amendment to the specification to add the reference character(s) in the description in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(b) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance. Specification The disclosure is objected to because it contains an embedded hyperlink and/or other form of browser-executable code. Applicant is required to delete the embedded hyperlink and/or other form of browser-executable code; references to websites should be limited to the top-level domain name without any prefix such as http:// or other browser-executable code. See MPEP § 608.01. Claim Objections Claims 1-22 are objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 1, line 6, “each respective tenant-specific service instance” lacks proper antecedent basis. Claim 5, line 3, “the same service” lacks proper antecedent basis. Claim 7, lines 4-5, “a respective tenant-specific service instance” should be “the respective tenant-specific service instance”. Claim 8, lines 1-2, “a tenant-specific service instance” should be “the respective tenant-specific service instance”. Claim 14, line 8, “each respective tenant-specific service instance” lacks proper antecedent basis. Claim 18, line 3, “the same service” lacks proper antecedent basis. Claim 20, lines 3-4, “a respective tenant-specific service instance” should be “the respective tenant-specific service instance”. Claim 21, line 2, “a tenant-specific service instance” should be “the respective tenant-specific service instance”. Claim 22 is missing a period. The claim must end with period. Claims 2-4, 6, 9-13, 15-17, 19 and 23 depend on objected claims and inherit the same issues as objected claims. Appropriate correction is required. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status. 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, 7, 14, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alston et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 20190188107 A1, hereinafter “Alston”) in view of Croteau et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 20210117217 A1, hereinafter “Croteau”). With regard to claim 1, Alston discloses: A method for monitoring a system deployed in a cloud (“methods, systems, and computer-readable media that implement a health monitoring system for a cloud application platform”, para [0004]), the method comprising: deploying a first health monitoring service that monitors a first set of common services (i.e. “deployment director”, “operations manager”) of the system deployed in the cloud (“The health monitor 148 monitors the health and performance of the components of the cloud application platform 120, e.g., the deployment director 142, the applications manager 144, the operations manager 146, and the CLI of the cloud application platform 120.”, para [0025]) by directly communicating with each service in the first set of services to determine whether a respective set of aspects of each respective service are properly operational (“The health monitor 148 can test the components by deploying probes that perform tasks, e.g., a set of tests, that test the performance and/or responsiveness of the components.”, para [0026], “Another example probe application, which may also be referred to as a CLI command health application, can perform a set of tasks to test the ability of the CLI of the cloud application platform 120 to receive and respond to requests. The CLI command health application can attempt to log into the CLI, push an application using the CLI, e.g., to deploy an application, start an application using the CLI, request and receive logs from the CLI, stop an application using the CLI, and/or delete an application using the CLI.”, para [0036]), the first set of common services accessed by a plurality of tenants of the system (“For example, the operations manager 146 can provide interfaces that enable users to configure deployment director 142, the applications manager 144, the health monitor 148, and/or other components of the cloud application platform 120.”, para [0024]). Alston does not disclose however, Croteau discloses: within each respective tenant-specific service instance of a plurality of tenant-specific service instances deployed in the cloud for the plurality of tenants (“SaaS customer instance 315, in high availability environment 305, is delivered via pod A 322 through pod F 326. Each pod includes multiple containers: tunable container A:A 332 through tunable container A:C 336. Multiple distinct SaaS customer instances can co-exist in high availability environment 305, for multiple customers, with each customer's environment comprising a dedicated trust zone that shares no code, data or identities with other customers' environments, as described earlier.”, para [0032]), deploying a respective health monitoring service (“Tuning Engine”, 355, fig 3) that monitors a respective plurality of microservices (“Tunable Container A:A”, 332, fig 3, “Tunable Container A:C”, 336, fig 3) of the service instance (“SaaS Customer Instance”, 315, fig 3) by directly communicating with each microservice of the tenant-specific service instance to determine whether a respective set of aspects of each respective microservice are properly operational (“Tunable container A:A 332 through tunable container A:C 336 are each instrumented to communicate application metrics 366 to tuning engine 355”, para [0033], “application metrics 366 are usable for analyzing performance”, para [0038]). PNG media_image1.png 603 766 media_image1.png Greyscale Both the systems of Alston and Croteau deal with monitoring cloud systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston in view of Croteau to “improve performance of an application instance and even add new functionality for customers” (Croteau, para [0040]). With regard to claim 7, Alston as modified discloses the method of claim 1. Alston further discloses: the first health monitoring service collects health monitoring data from each service in the first set of services (“The health monitor 148 can test the components by deploying probes that perform tasks, e.g., a set of tests, that test the performance and/or responsiveness of the components.”, para [0026], “The deployment director health application can compare the durations of time to respective thresholds. If one or more of the durations of time meets or exceeds its respective threshold, the deployment director health application can determine that the deployment director 142 failed this health test and provide, to the health monitor 148, data indicating that the deployment director 142 failed the health test. The deployment director health application can also provide, to the health monitor 148, data specifying each duration of time.”, para [0030], “The ops manager health application can perform a task to determine whether the operations manager 146 is available. The ops manager health application can perform this task periodically based on a specified time period. The ops manager health application can also provide, to the health monitor 148, data specifying whether the test was successful, e.g., whether the operations manager 146 was available, after each test.”, para [0036]); and Alston does not disclose however, Croteau discloses: each respective health monitoring service (“Tuning Engine” 355, fig 3) deployed within a respective tenant-specific service instance (“SaaS Customer Instance” 315, fig 3) PNG media_image2.png 516 655 media_image2.png Greyscale collects health monitoring data from the microservices of the respective tenant- specific service instance (“Tunable container A:A 332 through tunable container A:C 336 are each instrumented to communicate application metrics 366 to tuning engine 355”, para [0033]). Both the systems of Alston and Croteau deal with monitoring cloud systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston in view of Croteau to “improve performance of an application instance and even add new functionality for customers” (Croteau, para [0040]). With regard to claim 14, Alston discloses: A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing a program which when executed by at least one processing unit monitors a system deployed in a cloud (“methods, systems, and computer-readable media that implement a health monitoring system for a cloud application platform”, para [0004], “a computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that are operable, when executed by a plurality of computers”, para [0145]), the program comprising sets of instructions for: deploying a first health monitoring service that monitors a first set of common services (i.e. “deployment director”, “operations manager”) of the system deployed in the cloud (“The health monitor 148 monitors the health and performance of the components of the cloud application platform 120, e.g., the deployment director 142, the applications manager 144, the operations manager 146, and the CLI of the cloud application platform 120.”, para [0025]) by directly communicating with each service in the first set of services to determine whether a respective set of aspects of each respective service are properly operational (“The health monitor 148 can test the components by deploying probes that perform tasks, e.g., a set of tests, that test the performance and/or responsiveness of the components.”, para [0026], “Another example probe application, which may also be referred to as a CLI command health application, can perform a set of tasks to test the ability of the CLI of the cloud application platform 120 to receive and respond to requests. The CLI command health application can attempt to log into the CLI, push an application using the CLI, e.g., to deploy an application, start an application using the CLI, request and receive logs from the CLI, stop an application using the CLI, and/or delete an application using the CLI.”, para [0036]), the first set of common services accessed by a plurality of tenants of the system (“For example, the operations manager 146 can provide interfaces that enable users to configure deployment director 142, the applications manager 144, the health monitor 148, and/or other components of the cloud application platform 120.”, para [0024]). Alston does not disclose however, Croteau discloses: within each respective tenant-specific service instance of a plurality of tenant-specific service instances deployed in the cloud for the plurality of tenants (“SaaS customer instance 315, in high availability environment 305, is delivered via pod A 322 through pod F 326. Each pod includes multiple containers: tunable container A:A 332 through tunable container A:C 336. Multiple distinct SaaS customer instances can co-exist in high availability environment 305, for multiple customers, with each customer's environment comprising a dedicated trust zone that shares no code, data or identities with other customers' environments, as described earlier.”, para [0032]), deploying a respective health monitoring service (“Tuning Engine”, 355, fig 3) that monitors a respective plurality of microservices (“Tunable Container A:A”, 332, fig 3, “Tunable Container A:C”, 336, fig 3) of the service instance (“SaaS Customer Instance”, 315, fig 3) by directly communicating with each microservice of the tenant-specific service instance to determine whether a respective set of aspects of each respective microservice are properly operational (“Tunable container A:A 332 through tunable container A:C 336 are each instrumented to communicate application metrics 366 to tuning engine 355”, para [0033], “application metrics 366 are usable for analyzing performance”, para [0038]). PNG media_image1.png 603 766 media_image1.png Greyscale Both the systems of Alston and Croteau deal with monitoring cloud systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston in view of Croteau to “improve performance of an application instance and even add new functionality for customers” (Croteau, para [0040]). With regard to claim 20, Alston as modified discloses the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14. Alston further discloses: the first health monitoring service collects health monitoring data from each service in the first set of services (“The health monitor 148 can test the components by deploying probes that perform tasks, e.g., a set of tests, that test the performance and/or responsiveness of the components.”, para [0026], “The deployment director health application can compare the durations of time to respective thresholds. If one or more of the durations of time meets or exceeds its respective threshold, the deployment director health application can determine that the deployment director 142 failed this health test and provide, to the health monitor 148, data indicating that the deployment director 142 failed the health test. The deployment director health application can also provide, to the health monitor 148, data specifying each duration of time.”, para [0030], “The ops manager health application can perform a task to determine whether the operations manager 146 is available. The ops manager health application can perform this task periodically based on a specified time period. The ops manager health application can also provide, to the health monitor 148, data specifying whether the test was successful, e.g., whether the operations manager 146 was available, after each test.”, para [0036]). Alston does not disclose however, Croteau discloses: each respective health monitoring service (“Tuning Engine” 355, fig 3) deployed within a respective tenant-specific service instance (“SaaS Customer Instance” 315, fig 3) PNG media_image2.png 516 655 media_image2.png Greyscale collects health monitoring data from the microservices of the respective tenant- specific service instance (“Tunable container A:A 332 through tunable container A:C 336 are each instrumented to communicate application metrics 366 to tuning engine 355”, para [0033]). Both the systems of Alston and Croteau deal with monitoring cloud systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston in view of Croteau to “improve performance of an application instance and even add new functionality for customers.” (Croteau, para [0040]). Claims 2 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alston and Croteau as applied to claims 1 and 14 above, and further in view of Subramanian et al. (U.S. Patent Application No. US 20210311765 A1, hereinafter “Subramanian”). With regard to claim 2, Alston as modified discloses the method of claim 1. Alston as modified does not disclose however, Subramanian discloses: the system is a network management system that manages a plurality of groups of datacenters for a plurality of different tenants (“The host cluster is the data plane, which supports execution of workloads in VMs to implement various applications. Together, host cluster(s) and VI control plane(s) comprise a software-defined data center (SDDC).”, para [0015], “Various clients 119 can access respective components in virtualized computing system”, para [0021]) and each tenant-specific service instance performs a respective service of the network management system for a respective group of datacenters of a respective tenant (“VI control plane services 602 (e.g., registry service 111 and supervisor cluster service 109)”, para [0049], “Supervisor cluster service 109 enables host cluster 118 as supervisor cluster 101”, para [0028], “Various clients 119 can access respective components in virtualized computing system”, para [0021]). Both the systems of Alston and Subramanian deal with monitoring cloud systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Subramanian to “to provide a more centralized health monitor that can allow a user to identify health problems in the underlying infrastructure and/or the Kubernetes system in order to remediate the problems and bring the system back to the desired operational health state” (Subramanian, para [0003]). With regard to claim 15, Alston as modified discloses the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14. Alston as modified does not disclose however, Subramanian discloses: the system is a network management system that manages a plurality of groups of datacenters for a plurality of different tenants (“The host cluster is the data plane, which supports execution of workloads in VMs to implement various applications. Together, host cluster(s) and VI control plane(s) comprise a software-defined data center (SDDC).”, para [0015], “Various clients 119 can access respective components in virtualized computing system”, para [0021]) and each tenant-specific service instance performs a respective service of the network management system for a respective group of datacenters of a respective tenant (“VI control plane services 602 (e.g., registry service 111 and supervisor cluster service 109)”, para [0049], “Supervisor cluster service 109 enables host cluster 118 as supervisor cluster 101”, para [0028], “Various clients 119 can access respective components in virtualized computing system”, para [0021]). Both the systems of Alston and Subramanian deal with monitoring cloud systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Subramanian to “to provide a more centralized health monitor that can allow a user to identify health problems in the underlying infrastructure and/or the Kubernetes system in order to remediate the problems and bring the system back to the desired operational health state” (Subramanian, para [0003]). Claims 3 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alston, Croteau, and Subramanian as applied to claims 2 and 15 above, and further in view of Ploegert et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 20210200912 A1, hereinafter “Ploegert”). With regard to claim 3, Alston as modified discloses the method of claim 2. Alston further discloses: and a service for managing deployment for the tenant-specific service instances based on tenant requests (“The deployment director, which can be a BOSH Director in implementations in which the deployment manager is a BOSH-compliant tool, controls the creation and deployment of virtual machines and applications that are executed in the virtual machines. When a request is received to deploy an application, the deployment director 142 can initiate one or more virtual machines and install the application in the one or more virtual machines. For example, the deployment director 142 can initiate the job virtual machine 170 and install the job application 172 in the job virtual machine 172.”, para [0022]). Alston as modified does not disclose however, Ploegert discloses: wherein the first set of common services comprises at least a service for managing tenant subscriptions (“The platform manager 128 can be configured to manage entitlements of various tenants and/or tenant subscriptions”, para [0388]) Both the systems of Alston and Ploegert deal with cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Ploegert to centralize management of tenant subscriptions. With regard to claim 16, Alston as modified discloses the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15. Alston further discloses: and a service for managing deployment for the tenant-specific service instances based on tenant requests (“The deployment director, which can be a BOSH Director in implementations in which the deployment manager is a BOSH-compliant tool, controls the creation and deployment of virtual machines and applications that are executed in the virtual machines. When a request is received to deploy an application, the deployment director 142 can initiate one or more virtual machines and install the application in the one or more virtual machines. For example, the deployment director 142 can initiate the job virtual machine 170 and install the job application 172 in the job virtual machine 172.”, para [0022]). Alston as modified does not disclose however, Ploegert discloses: wherein the first set of common services comprises at least a service for managing tenant subscriptions (“The platform manager 128 can be configured to manage entitlements of various tenants and/or tenant subscriptions”, para [0388]) Both the systems of Alston and Ploegert deal with cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Ploegert to centralize management of tenant subscriptions. Claims 4 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alston, Croteau, and Subramanian as applied to claims 2 and 15 above, and further in view of Hira et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 20190238509 A1, hereinafter “Hira”) and Kuan et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 20160087859 A1, hereinafter “Kuan”). With regard to claim 4, Alston as modified discloses the method of claim 2. Alston as modified does not disclose: wherein the tenant-specific service instances comprise at least a policy management service instance that manages network policy for a first group of datacenters and a network monitoring service instance that performs flow collection and monitoring for a second group of datacenters. Hira discloses: wherein the tenant-specific service instances comprise at least a policy management service instance that manages network policy for a first group of datacenters (“To enforce network policies (e.g., security policies, routing policies, enforcement policies) throughout endpoints of the logical networks, each host computing system (e.g., each virtual private cloud) may locally operate a proxy control plane that manages forwarding of network policy rules within its respective host computing system.”, para [0004], “SDN manager 101 establishes a set of policy rules (e.g., security rules, routing rules, forwarding rules, enforcement rules)”, para [0029], “SDN manager” 301, “Datacenter” 311, “Datacenter” 312, fig 3) and Both the systems of Alston and Hira deal with multi-tenant cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Hira to improve scalability. Kuan discloses: a network monitoring service instance that performs flow collection and monitoring for a second group of datacenters (“a distributed virtual monitoring (iDVM) server system 218 to collect network traffic data and perform network analytics… iDVM server system 218 receives virtual network and VM infrastructure information 237 from data center infrastructure 202.”, para [0056]). Both the systems of Alston and Kuan deal with monitoring cloud systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Kuan to “to offer agility and scalability” (Kuan, para [0045]). With regard to claim 17, Alston as modified discloses the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15. Alston as modified does not disclose: wherein the tenant-specific service instances comprise at least a policy management service instance that manages network policy for a first group of datacenters and a network monitoring service instance that performs flow collection and monitoring for a second group of datacenters. Hira discloses: wherein the tenant-specific service instances comprise at least a policy management service instance that manages network policy for a first group of datacenters (“To enforce network policies (e.g., security policies, routing policies, enforcement policies) throughout endpoints of the logical networks, each host computing system (e.g., each virtual private cloud) may locally operate a proxy control plane that manages forwarding of network policy rules within its respective host computing system.”, para [0004], “SDN manager 101 establishes a set of policy rules (e.g., security rules, routing rules, forwarding rules, enforcement rules)”, para [0029], “SDN manager” 301, “Datacenter” 311, “Datacenter” 312, fig 3) and Both the systems of Alston and Hira deal with multi-tenant cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Hira to improve scalability. Kuan discloses: a network monitoring service instance that performs flow collection and monitoring for a second group of datacenters (“a distributed virtual monitoring (iDVM) server system 218 to collect network traffic data and perform network analytics… iDVM server system 218 receives virtual network and VM infrastructure information 237 from data center infrastructure 202.”, para [0056]). Both the systems of Alston and Kuan deal with monitoring cloud systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Kuan to “to offer agility and scalability” (Kuan, para [0045]). Claims 5 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alston, Croteau, and Subramanian as applied to claims 2 and 15 above, and further in view of Peng et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 20210204191 A1, hereinafter “Peng”). With regard to claim 5, Alston as modified discloses the method of claim 2. Alston as modified does not disclose however, Peng discloses: wherein the tenant-specific service instances comprise at least two service instances of a same type of service instance (i.e. “multiple VPC instances”), each of the at least two service instances performing the same service for a different respective group of datacenters of a respective tenant (“one tenant may have multiple VPC instances, where they may be deployed in the same datacenter or geographically across different datacenters”, para [0011]). Both the systems of Alston and Peng deal with cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Peng to improve service reliability. With regard to claim 18, Alston as modified discloses the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15. Alston as modified does not disclose however, Peng discloses: wherein the tenant-specific service instances comprise at least two service instances of a same type of service instance (i.e. “multiple VPC instances”), each of the at least two service instances performing the same service for a different respective group of datacenters of a respective tenant (“one tenant may have multiple VPC instances, where they may be deployed in the same datacenter or geographically across different datacenters”, para [0011]). Both the systems of Alston and Peng deal with cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Peng to improve service reliability. Claims 6 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alston, Croteau, and Subramanian as applied to claims 2 and 15 above, and further in view of Bansal et al. (U.S. Patent Publication No. US 11805021 B1, hereinafter “Bansal”). With regard to claim 6, Alston as modified discloses the method of claim 2. Alston as modified does not disclose however, Bansal discloses: wherein the tenant-specific service instances comprise at least two different types of service instances that perform different services for a same group of datacenters of a particular tenant (“each tenant 115 may execute different types of services on the datacenter 125 configured for the tenant 115”, col 4, lines 59-60). Both the systems of Alston and Bansal deal with cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Bansal to improve system flexibility. With regard to claim 19, Alston as modified discloses the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15. Alston as modified does not disclose however, Bansal discloses: wherein the tenant-specific service instances comprise at least two different types of service instances that perform different services for a same group of datacenters of a particular tenant (“each tenant 115 may execute different types of services on the datacenter 125 configured for the tenant 115”, col 4, lines 59-60). Both the systems of Alston and Bansal deal with cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Bansal to improve system flexibility. Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alston and Croteau as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Torun et al. (U.S. Patent Publication No. US 11163669 B1, hereinafter “Torun”). With regard to claim 10, Alston as modified discloses the method of claim 1. Alston as modified does not disclose however, Torun discloses: wherein a particular health monitoring service communicates with a particular microservice by accessing an internally exposed application programming interface (API) of the particular microservice at regular time intervals (“For example, an automated testing application may continuously or periodically generate application requests in the form of application programming interface (API) requests, command-line interface (CLI) commands, or the like, depending on the types of input accepted by the software application, where each of the requests is designed to test operation of one or more aspects of the software application”, col 3, lines 46-53). Both the systems of Alston and Torun deal with monitoring an application. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Torun to “improve the software's performance” (Torun, col 3, line 12). Claims 11 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alston and Croteau as applied to claim 1 and 14 above, and further in view of White et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 20230048092 A1, hereinafter “White”). With regard to claim 11, Alston as modified discloses the method of claim 1. Alston as modified does not disclose however, White discloses: wherein the respective sets of aspects of at least two different respective microservices that are monitored by a particular health monitoring instance are different (“KPI monitoring system 101 may, based on the information provided (at 102) by application provider 103, maintain (at 104) information associating different sets of KPIs for different applications”, para [0021]). Both the systems of Alston and White deal with monitoring an application. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of White to “to improve performance associated with application” (White, para [0043]). With regard to claim 22, Alston as modified discloses the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14. Alston as modified does not disclose however, White discloses: wherein the respective sets of aspects of at least two different respective microservices that are monitored by a particular health monitoring instance are different (“KPI monitoring system 101 may, based on the information provided (at 102) by application provider 103, maintain (at 104) information associating different sets of KPIs for different applications”, para [0021]) Both the systems of Alston and White deal with monitoring an application. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of White to “to improve performance associated with application” (White, para [0043]). Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alston, Croteau, and White as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of Hassine et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 20150378763 A1, hereinafter “Hassine”). With regard to claim 12, Alston as modified discloses the method of claim 11. White discloses: wherein the sets of aspects exposed by each different microservice to the particular health monitoring instance (“KPI monitoring system 101 may, based on the information provided (at 102) by application provider 103, maintain (at 104) information associating different sets of KPIs for different applications”, para [0021]) Both the systems of Alston and White deal with monitoring an application. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of White to “to improve performance associated with application” (White, para [0043]). Alston as modified does not disclose however, Hassine discloses: are determined by developers of the different microservices (“the administrator 114 and/or the developer 116 select one or more of the metrics 314 to be monitored”, para [0042]). Both the systems of Alston and Hassine deal with monitoring systems cloud systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Hassine to improve application performance. Claims 13 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Alston and Croteau as applied to claim 1 and 14 above, and further in view of Tanaka et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 20230139817 A1, hereinafter “Tanaka”), Wells (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 20210218750 A1), and Shah et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 20230244466 A1, hereinafter “Shah”). With regard to claim 13, Alston as modified discloses the method of claim 1. Alston as modified does not disclose: the system is deployed within a Kubernetes cluster in a public cloud; the respective tenant-specific service instances are each deployed in separate respective namespaces of the Kubernetes cluster; and each respective health monitoring service is deployed in the respective namespace of the respective service instance monitored by the respective health monitoring service. Tanaka discloses: the system is deployed within a Kubernetes cluster in a public cloud (“As shown in FIG. 5, the monitored system 400 is a computer system (in this example, a Kubernetes cluster) built in a cloud (for example, a public cloud such as AWS (Amazon Web Services)).”, para [0065]); Both the systems of Alston and Tanaka deal with monitoring cloud systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Tanaka to improve scalability and automation. Wells discloses: the respective tenant-specific service instances are each deployed in separate respective namespaces of the Kubernetes cluster (“Some container-orchestration systems, such as, for example, Kubernetes, employ network policies using namespaces to ensure containers assigned to different namespaces cannot interfere with each other.”, para [0003]); and Both the systems of Alston and Wells deal with cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Wells “to ensure containers residing in different namespaces do not interfere with one another” (Wells, para [0014]). Shah discloses: each respective health monitoring service is deployed in the respective namespace of the respective service instance monitored by the respective health monitoring service (“creating a management namespace 161 and deploying an environment configuration module 162 in the cluster 160, along with an environment monitor 164”, para [0047]). Both the systems of Alston and Shah deal with cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Shah to ensure accurate and secure monitoring. With regard to claim 23, Alston as modified discloses the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14. Alston as modified does not disclose: the system is deployed within a Kubernetes cluster in a public cloud; the respective tenant-specific service instances are each deployed in separate respective namespaces of the Kubernetes cluster; and each respective health monitoring service is deployed in the respective namespace of the respective service instance monitored by the respective health monitoring service. Tanaka discloses: the system is deployed within a Kubernetes cluster in a public cloud (“As shown in FIG. 5, the monitored system 400 is a computer system (in this example, a Kubernetes cluster) built in a cloud (for example, a public cloud such as AWS (Amazon Web Services)).”, para [0065]); Both the systems of Alston and Tanaka deal with monitoring cloud systems. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Tanaka to improve scalability and automation. Wells discloses: the respective tenant-specific service instances are each deployed in separate respective namespaces of the Kubernetes cluster (“Some container-orchestration systems, such as, for example, Kubernetes, employ network policies using namespaces to ensure containers assigned to different namespaces cannot interfere with each other.”, para [0003]); and Both the systems of Alston and Wells deal with cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Wells “to ensure containers residing in different namespaces do not interfere with one another” (Wells, para [0014]). Shah discloses: each respective health monitoring service is deployed in the respective namespace of the respective service instance monitored by the respective health monitoring service (“creating a management namespace 161 and deploying an environment configuration module 162 in the cluster 160, along with an environment monitor 164”, para [0047]). Both the systems of Alston and Shah deal with cloud computing. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to combine Alston as modified in view of Shah to ensure accurate and secure monitoring. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 8, 9, and 21 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SELENA SABAH NAHRA whose telephone number is (571)272-6115. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 7:00 AM -5:30 PM. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hyung (Sam) Sough can be reached at (571) 272-6799. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /S.S.N./Examiner, Art Unit 2192 /S. Sough/SPE, Art Unit 2192
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Prosecution Timeline

May 10, 2023
Application Filed
Nov 15, 2025
Non-Final Rejection — §103 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
75%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+66.7%)
3y 1m
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 16 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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