DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. Claims 1–20 are pending for examination in the reply filed on 04/07/2026.
Examiner’s Remarks
3. Examiner refers to and explicitly cites particular pages, sections, figures, paragraphs or columns and lines in the references as applied to Applicant’s claims to the extent practicable to streamline prosecution.
Although the cited portions of the references are representative of the best teachings in the art and are applied to meet the specific limitations of the claims, other uncited but related teachings of the references may be equally applicable as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses to the rejections, the Applicant fully considers not only the cited portions of the references, but also the references in their entirety, as potentially teaching, suggesting or rendering obvious all or one or more aspects of the claimed invention.
Abbreviations
4. Where appropriate, the following abbreviations will be used when referencing Applicant’s submissions and specific teachings of the reference(s):
i. figure / figures: Fig. / Figs.
ii. column / columns: Col. / Cols.
iii. page / pages: p. / pp.
References Cited
5. (A) Hu et al. US 2018/0255137 A1 (“Hu”).
(B) Martin et al., US 7,703,091 B1 (“Martin”).
(C) Sutton et al., US 2020/0153645 A1 (“Sutton”).
(D) Rose et al., US 2023/0108187 A1 (“Rose”).
(E) Bigus et al., US 7,386,522 B1 (“Bigus”).
(F) Anjanappa, US 12,061,928 B1.
Hu, Sutton, Rose, Bigus, and Anjanappa were cited in the previous Office action.
Notice re prior art available under both pre-AIA and AIA
6. 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 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.
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 of this title, 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.
A.
7. Claims 1, 7–13 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (A) Hu in view of (B) Martin and (C) Sutton.
See “References Cited” section, above, for full citations of references.
8. Regarding claim 1, (A) Hu teaches/suggests the invention substantially as claimed, including:
“identifying, by a job engine associated with one or more software-as-a-service (SaaS) services, a plurality of computing resources distributed across one or more cloud environments, wherein the plurality of computing resources comprise computing resources of two or more different resource types”
(Fig. 2 and ¶ 40: The cloud architecture 200 includes a physical layer 202, an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) layer 204, a Platform as a Service (PaaS) layer 206, and a Software as a Service (SaaS) layer 208;
¶ 46: The top layer in the hierarchy is the SaaS layer 208. The SaaS layer 208 may provide a framework for implementing one or more software services. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the SaaS layer 208 may include instances of a Data Craft Service (DCS) service 232 and a Data Ingestion Service (DIS) service 234. The DCS service 232 implements an application for processing data;
¶ 56: a plurality of instances of the resource manager 310 may be loaded onto a plurality of different servers such that any resource agent 312 deployed in the cloud may request resource units from any instance of the resource manger 310 by transmitting the request to one instance of the resource manager 310 via the network. The multiple instances of the resource manager 310 may be configured to communicate such that resource allocation is planned globally be all instances of the resource manager 310. For example, one instance of the resource manager 310 may be loaded onto a single server in each data center 110 to provide high availability of the resource manager 310. In another example, one instance of the resource manager 310 may be loaded onto a single server in each availability zone of a plurality of availability zones. Each availability zone may comprise a number of data centers, such that all data centers in a particular geographic area are served by one instance of the resource manager 310;
¶ 59: Again, the resource manager 310 may be deployed as a physically distributed, but logically centralized cloud plane including a number of instances of the resource manager 310 deployed in different data centers or availability zones of the cloud 400);
“generating, by the job engine, a plurality of resource controllers associated with the plurality of computing resources, … wherein a resource controller of the plurality of resource controllers is generated in accordance with a [service] type … the resource controller operable to:”
(¶ 56: a plurality of instances of the resource manager 310 may be loaded onto a plurality of different servers … Each availability zone may comprise a number of data centers, such that all data centers in a particular geographic area are served by one instance of the resource manager 310;
¶ 57: The plurality of resource agents 302 may include a variety of resource agent types. Each resource agent 312 includes logic to implement a variety of functions specific to the type of layer or service associated with the resource agent 312;
¶ 59: resource manager 310 may be deployed as a physically distributed, but logically centralized cloud plane including a number of instances of the resource manager 310 deployed in different data centers or availability zones of the cloud 400;
¶ 60: in order to execute tasks, the resource agents are dependent on the resource manager to allocate resource units to the resource agents for executing those tasks. Each resource agent opens a communication channel between the resource agent 312 and one instance of the resource manager);
“monitor, based at least in part on a set of tasks generated by the job engine, … [[one or more parameters associated with]] the computing resource”
(¶ 58: The resource manager 310 collects information related to the resource units deployed in the cloud and develops a resource allocation plan allocating the resource units to the layers and/or services deployed in the cloud. A resource allocation plan can be optimized by customizing the allocation of resource units based on different services and applications;
Fig. 5 and ¶ 72: At step 502, profile data is collected from a plurality of resource agents. In one embodiment, the plurality of resource agents are deployed in a cloud, with each resource agent in the plurality of resource agents associated with a layer or service in the cloud. Each resource agent streams profile data corresponding to that resource agent to an instance of a resource manager. The profile data may include, but is not limited to, a resource type identifier, resource utilization information, and/or a task execution plan);
“modify, based at least in part on the set of tasks generated by the job engine, the … the computing resource”
(¶ 58: The resource manager 310 collects information related to the resource units deployed in the cloud and develops a resource allocation plan allocating the resource units …;
Fig. 5 and ¶ 73: a number of resource units are allocated to each resource agent in the plurality of resource agents based on the collected profile data. In one embodiment, a resource manager is configured to generate a resource allocation plan utilizing the collected profile data. For example, a number of tasks managed by each resource agent may be utilized to calculate a number of resource units to allocate to the resource agent).
Hu does not teach: “wherein the plurality of resource controllers comprise resource controllers of two or more different controller types, and wherein a resource controller of the plurality of resource controllers is mapped to a computing resource of the plurality of computing resources based at least in part on a resource type of the computing resource and a controller type of the resource controller.”
(B) Martin, in the context of Hu’s teachings, however teaches or suggests:
“wherein the plurality of resource controllers comprise resource controllers of two or more different controller types, and wherein a resource controller of the plurality of resource controllers is GENERATED IN ACCORDANCE WITH A RESOURCE TYPE of a computing resource of the plurality of computing resources and a CONTROLLER TYPE of the resource controller”
(Col. 1, lines 54–62: created ( e.g., programmed) agents specifically to manage respective types of resources within the storage area network such as agents for managing hosts (i.e., host agents), agents to manage switches (i.e., switch agents), agents to manage data storage system (i.e., storage system agents), agents to manage software applications ( e.g., database agents);
Col. 3, lines 20–23: for installing one or more agents on a plurality of host computer systems in an automated and bulk manner;
Col. 6, lines 10–15: S. When installed and operational within the host computer systems 104, the agents 106 ( of which a host may execute more than one) interact with the resources 102 through 104 to manage these resources under the control of a network management application 120 operating in the host computer system;
Col. 11, lines 30–40: the agent installer 150 identifies a plurality of different types of agents 151 currently installed on the host computer systems 104 that can be replaced with a newer version of a corresponding new agent 151 in the media repository.
Each different type of agent is responsible for managing a corresponding type of resource in the storage area network 100. In this manner, embodiments disclosed herein are able to install many different types of agents on multiple host computer systems in automated manner).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (B) Martin with those of (A) Hu to deploy a specific type of resource agent based on types of the different collections of hardware resources to monitor and manage allocated resources and/or task executions thereon. The motivation or advantage to do so is to provide for the custom deployment of agents based on different hardware/resource configurations.
Hu and Martin do not teach “monitor … one or more parameters associated with the computing resource” and “modify … the one or more parameters associated with the computing resource.”
(C) Sutton, in the context of Hu and Martin’s teachings, however teaches or suggests:
“monitor … one or more parameters associated with the computing resource” and “modify … the one or more parameters associated with the computing resource”
(¶ 67: resource management process 204 may identify rate 244 that data is written to and read from memory 216. The resource management process 204 may adjust rate 244 by throttling;
¶ 69: The resource management process monitors use of resources in the data processing system following the request being granted. If the use of the resources does not meet the SLA or any other policies, the resource management process can adjust set of parameters of devices in set of resources. For example, the resource management process may adjust rate for memory. The resource management process 204 may adjust second frequency of set of cores or the voltage supplied to set of cores;
¶ 81: monitors performance of one or more cores from the cores 326. For example, core performance sensor 336 may monitor a frequency at which active cores among the multiple cores 326 operate. The upgrade management process 306 may activate core 333 at the same frequency the other active cores in plurality of cores 326, as previously discussed with regard to core 220 in FIG. 4. In other examples, the upgrade management process 306 may activate the core at a first frequency and adjust the frequency to increase the processing capacity of plurality of cores 326 in set of resources 206).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (C) Sutton with those of (A) Hu and (B) Martin to monitor and adjust parameters (settings) of allocated resources. The motivation or advantage to do so is to ensure compliance with expected performance and/or required service levels of the allocated cloud resources.
9. Regarding claim 7, Sutton teaches or suggests:
“wherein, to modify the one or more parameters associated with the computing resource, the resource controller is operable to adjust a state of the one or more parameters based at least in part on information obtained via monitoring the one or more parameters”
(¶ 67: resource management process 204 may identify rate 244 that data is written to and read from memory 216. The resource management process 204 may adjust rate 244 by throttling;
¶ 69: The resource management process monitors use of resources in the data processing system following the request being granted. If the use of the resources does not meet the SLA or any other policies, the resource management process can adjust set of parameters of devices in set of resources. For example, the resource management process may adjust rate for memory. The resource management process 204 may adjust second frequency of set of cores or the voltage supplied to set of cores).
10. Regarding claim 8, Sutton teaches or suggests:
“wherein, to modify the one or more parameters associated with the computing resource, the resource controller is operable to adjust a state of the one or more parameters based at least in part on a mutation task included in the set of tasks for the resource controller and independent from information obtained via monitoring the one or more parameters”
(¶ 67: a user may request additional memory in a capacity upgrade on demand;
¶ 121: user can request such adjustments of the parameters of the computing resources 206, for example, using one or more corresponding commands or application program interfaces).
11. Regarding claim 9, Hu teaches or suggests:
“wherein the job engine, the plurality of resource controllers, and the plurality of computing resources operate in a first cloud environment”
(¶ 56: In one embodiment, the resource manager 310 is a physically distributed, but logically centralized cloud plane … a plurality of instances of the resource manager 310 may be loaded onto a plurality of different servers such that any resource agent 312 deployed in the cloud may request resource units from any instance of the resource manager … For example, one instance of the resource manager 310 may be loaded onto a single server in each data center 110 to provide high availability of the resource manager 310. In another example, one instance of the resource manager 310 may be loaded onto a single server in each availability zone of a plurality of availability zones. Each availability zone may comprise a number of data centers, such that all data centers in a particular geographic area are served by one instance of the resource manager 310).
12. Regarding claim 10, Hu teaches or suggests:
“wherein: the job engine and the plurality of resource controllers operate in a first cloud environment; and the plurality of computing resources operate in a second cloud environment different than the first cloud environment”
(¶ 56: In one embodiment, the resource manager 310 is a physically distributed, but logically centralized cloud plane … a plurality of instances of the resource manager 310 may be loaded onto a plurality of different servers such that any resource agent 312 deployed in the cloud may request resource units from any instance of the resource manager … one instance of the resource manager 310 may be loaded onto a single server in each availability zone of a plurality of availability zones. Each availability zone may comprise a number of data centers, such that all data centers in a particular geographic area are served by one instance of the resource manager 310).
13. Regarding claim 11, Hu and Sutton teach or suggest:
“wherein, to monitor the one or more parameters associated with the computing resource, the resource controller is operable to: monitor a performance of one or more units of processing power associated with the computing resource, or a state of a cluster comprising the computing resource, or both”
(Hu, (¶ 58: The resource manager 310 collects information related to the resource units deployed in the cloud and develops a resource allocation plan allocating the resource units …;
¶ 81: a cluster allocated to the resource agent 312 may be utilized to execute a task using the tools implemented by the cluster;
Sutton, ¶ 69: resource management process 204 monitors use of resources 206 in the data processing system … resource management process 204 may adjust second frequency 232 of set of cores 226 or the voltage supplied to set of cores 222. The adjustments to the frequency and the voltage may be referred to as scaling. The resource management process 204 may scale the frequency and the voltage to meet power use policy).
14. Regarding claim 12, Hu teaches or suggests:
“wherein the plurality of computing resources comprise individual computing resources, or computing resource clusters, or both”
(¶ 81: a cluster allocated to the resource agent 312 may be utilized to execute a task using the tools implemented by the cluster).
15. Regarding claim 13, it is the corresponding system claim reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the method of claim 1. Therefore, it is rejected on the same basis as claim 1, including the following rationale:
Hu teaches/suggests:
“a processor; memory coupled with the processor; and instructions stored in the memory and executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to:”
(Fig. 12 and ¶ 92: processor and memory).
16. Regarding claim 18, it is the corresponding computer program product claim reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the method of claim 1. Therefore, it is rejected on the same basis as claim 1 above.
B.
17. Claims 2–3, 14–15, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (A) Hu in view of (B) Martin and (C) Sutton, as applied to claims 1, 13, and 18 above, and further in view of (D) Rose.
18. Regarding claim 2, Hu, Martin, and Sutton do not teach, but
(D) Rose teaches or suggests implementing:
“generating, in accordance with a generation schedule, second instances of the plurality of resource controllers, wherein first instances of the plurality of resource controllers are replaced by the generated second instances”
(¶ 104: track, forecast, schedule or plan when to upgrade third-party software products to maximize the amount of enterprise-created software applications that are considered to be supported for a particular period of time. In one or more embodiments, indicators may be used to schedule or plan when to upgrade third-party software products and this may be done to ensure a particular application is supported for a particular period of time;
¶ 110: the upgrade is scheduled to happen before the third-party software product has expired, after the third-party software product has expired, or that the particular period of time has expired and the third-party software product has not been upgraded).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (D) Rose with those of Hu, Martin, and Sutton to upgrade (re-deploy) the resource managers upon expiration of a current version. The motivation or advantage to do so is to ensure continued product support, development, and enhancements of the deployed software.
19. Regarding claim 3, Rose teaches or suggests implementing:
“the generation schedule is based at least in part on a life span of the plurality of resource controllers, and the generation schedule corresponds to a time period over which respective first instances of the plurality of resource controllers operate before subsequent instances of the plurality of resource controllers are generated to replace the respective first instances of the plurality of resource controllers”
(¶ 104: track, forecast, schedule or plan when to upgrade third-party software products to maximize the amount of enterprise-created software applications that are considered to be supported for a particular period of time. In one or more embodiments, indicators may be used to schedule or plan when to upgrade third-party software products and this may be done to ensure a particular application is supported for a particular period of time;
¶ 110: the upgrade is scheduled to happen before the third-party software product has expired, after the third-party software product has expired, or that the particular period of time has expired and the third-party software product has not been upgraded).
20. Regarding claims 14–15, they are the corresponding system claims reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the method of claims 2–3, respectively. Therefore, it is rejected on the same basis as claims 2–3 above.
21. Regarding claim 19, it is the corresponding computer program product claim reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the method of claim 2. Therefore, it is rejected on the same basis as claim 2 above.
C.
22. Claims 5, 17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (A) Hu in view of (B) Martin and (C) Sutton, as applied to claims 1, 13, and 18 above, and further in view of (E) Bigus.
23. Regarding claim 5, Hu teaches or suggests “generating, after generating the plurality of resource controllers, a plurality of sets of tasks for the plurality of resource controllers, wherein the set of tasks is one of the plurality of sets of tasks and comprises tasks to be executed”
(¶ 70: as new tasks are initiated within a service, the corresponding resource agent 312 may notify a corresponding instance of a resource manager 310 of a change in the profile data for the resource agent 312;
¶ 61: task execution play may also indicate an order or priority of the tasks managed by the resource agent 312, information related to a manner for executing the tasks, and/or information related to a number or type of resource units needed to execute the tasks;
¶ 63: resource allocation plan maps available resource units allocated to each particular resource agent 312 in the plurality of resource agents. Each resource agent 312 in the plurality of resource agents is configured to manage the execution of tasks using the number of resource units allocated to the resource agent 312).
Although Hu reasonably suggest that the tasks may be executed by the resource controller
(see ¶ 57: In another embodiment, a resource agent 312 is a container that wraps an existing resource manager of a service. For example, a service that was written for an existing cloud architecture may be modified to include a resource agent 312 that wraps the resource manager implemented in the service of the existing cloud architecture. The container may utilize the logic of the previous resource manager for certain tasks while making the resource manager compatible with the unified resource manager 310. In yet another embodiment, the resource agent is a lightweight client, referred to herein as a resource agent fleet (RAF), such that only a basic amount of logic is included in the resource agent and more complex logic is assumed to be implemented, if needed, by the resource manager. RAF resource agents 302 may be deployed in some SaaS services. A RAF resource agent 312 may be a simple software module that can be used for a variety of services and only provides the minimum level of functionality to make the service compatible with the unified resource manager 310),
(E) Bigus clearly suggests implementing this limitation/feature
(Col. 5, lines 20–40: A subset of such agents which are capable of being passed between and operating in different applications or computer systems are referred to as mobile agents. In certain circumstances, the functions of a mobile agent, combined with the functions of an agent manager program that is resident in a client's computer system and interacts with the mobile agent, may cooperatively be considered as portions of a single intelligent agent).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (E) Bigus with those of Hu, Martin, and Sutton to provide for the resource controller to directly manage and execute tasks distributed to the different resource agents functioning as a light-weight extension of the resource managers. The motivation or advantage to do so is provide for more centralized control of task executions by the resource managers.
24. Regarding claim 17, it is the corresponding system claim reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the method of claim 5. Therefore, it is rejected on the same basis as claim 5 above.
25. Regarding claim 20, it is the corresponding computer program product claim reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the method of claim 5. Therefore, it is rejected on the same basis as claim 5 above.
D.
26. Claims 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (A) Hu in view of (B) Martin, (C) Sutton, and (E) Bigus, and further in view of (F) Anjanappa.
27. Regarding claim 6, Hu and Bigus teach “the resource controller is further operable to execute the tasks of the set of tasks in sequential order”
(Hu, ¶ 57: In another embodiment, a resource agent 312 is a container that wraps an existing resource manager of a service;
¶ 61: task execution play may also indicate an order or priority of the tasks managed by the resource agent 312, information related to a manner for executing the tasks, and/or information related to a number or type of resource units needed to execute the tasks;
Bigus, Col. 5, lines 20–40, teaching combining functions of agents and managers).
Hu, Martin, Sutton, and Bigus do not teach “execution of a sequential task in the set of tasks is independent from a success or a failure of a previous task in the set of tasks.”
(F) Anjanappa, in the context of the applied teachings, however teaches or suggests:
“execution of a sequential task in the set of tasks is independent from a success or a failure of a previous task in the set of tasks”
(Col. 11, lines 13–16: The job scheduling and management service 110 may allow for options to fail or continue when an activity of a flow fails, and an option to skip some activities when executing a flow).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (F) Anjanappa with those of Hu, Martin, Sutton, and Bigus to provide for the continued execution of a workflow (task sequences) upon a single or limited number of failures. The motivation or advantage to do so is provide for fault tolerant and flexible execution of workflows.
Allowable Subject Matter
28. Claims 4 and 16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if 1) rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Response to Arguments
29. Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claims have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the newly applied teachings or references being used in the current rejection.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
(a) Graupner et al., US 7,165,087 B1, teaching installing and configuring computing agents.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Aimee J. Li can be reached on (571)272-4169. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BENJAMIN C WU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2195
June 29, 2026
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