DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1, 4-9, and 12-18 are pending. Claims 2-3, 10-11, and 19-20 are cancelled.
Response to Arguments
Regarding Objections:
Applicant’s amendments regarding the objection of claim 6 resolve the spelling issue. The objection of claim 6 is withdrawn.
Regarding 35 U.S.C. 112:
Applicant’s amendments and arguments regarding the rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) have been fully considered and are found to be persuasive. The rejections of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) are withdrawn.
Regarding: Prior Art Rejections:
Applicant’s amendments and arguments regarding the rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 1-20 have been fully considered and are found to be not persuasive. The rejections of claims 1, 4, 9, 12, and 17 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) and claims 5-8, 13-16, and 18 under 35 U.S.C. 103 are maintained. Rejections of claims 2-3, 10-11, and 19-20 are moot.
Applicant’s remarks recite:
In contrast, in the claimed invention, a fault domain comprises only a single TOR. Further, the each of the servers included in the fault are connected to that single TOR and not connected to any other TOR e.g., other TOR belonging to other fault domains (See non-limiting of FIG. 6 in the published application). Accordingly, Applicant have amended the claims to recite the features of: (i) wherein each host machine in the first subset of host machines is communicatively coupled to the first TOR switch; and (ii) wherein each host machine in the second subset of host machines is communicatively coupled to the second TOR switch, and wherein the second TOR is different than the first TOR and the first subset of host machines is disjoint from the second subset of host machines.
Applicant respectfully submits that Reddy simply does not describe or suggest, at least the above amended features of the independent claims, and thus requests that the pending rejections be withdrawn.
Examiner’s broadest reasonable interpretation of the claimed creation of the first and second fault domains is that each fault domain is required have one TOR switch. While the fault domains in Reddy are seen to contain multiple TOR switches, the language of the claims do not necessarily limit the fault domains to only having one TOR switch. As a result, the prior art in Reddy may still be applied to teach the claimed invention as Reddy discloses the discovery of multiple fault domains consisting of different TOR switches communicatively coupled to their respective subset of sleds of all sleds as seen in Figures 16, 17 and associated specification [0073-0077].
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 4-9, and 12-18 are objected to as newly amendments in independent claims appear to recite: “the first TOR” and “the second TOR” when referring to the first and second TOR switches.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 4, 9, 12, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated over Reddy US 20190068466 A1.
Regarding claim 1, Reddy teaches the invention as claimed including:
A method comprising:
providing an availability domain comprising a rack, the rack comprising a plurality of top-of-rack (TOR) switches and a plurality of host machines (Fig 2 Sleds; [0073] Each rack device is connected to one or more switches 1716, represented herein as top-of-rack switches 1716. Each top-of-rack switch 1716 is connected to one or more sleds 1718 (which may be placed inside or associated with a rack device 1714));
creating a first fault domain within the availability domain, the first fault domain comprising a first TOR switch from the plurality of TOR switches and a first subset of host machines from the plurality of host machines, wherein each host machine in the first subset of host machines is communicatively coupled to the first TOR switch (Fig 17 Fault Domain 1722 including TOR 1 pointing to Sleds 1718; [0073] The fault domain 1722 may be defined as the group of devices that rely on the same power zone 1706 (which may include various power source devices). This reliance may be represented by an understanding that, were one or more of the power source devices in power zone 1706 to fail or experience a fault, the issue would be likely to affect one or more other devices in the fault domain 1722 (e.g., racks, switches, or sleds) but would leave devices outside the fault domain 1722 unaffected … [0073] Each top-of-rack switch 1716 is connected to one or more sleds 1718 (which may be placed inside or associated with a rack device 1714)); and
creating a second fault domain within the availability domain, the second fault domain comprising a second TOR switch from the plurality of TOR switches and a second subset of host machines from the plurality of host machines ([0074] the compute device 1200 continues to execute the method 1500 for automatic discovery of fault domains. The method 1500 continues at block 1532, in which the compute device 1200 generates a fault domain mapping based on the sled data. More specifically, and referring to block 1534, the compute device 1200 generates the fault domain mapping based on switch data. For example, switch data for each sled 1718 is collated by sled and the sleds connected to each switch (e.g., a top-of-rack switch in a rack) are stored in a data structure (e.g., a tree or graph) in association with an identifier for the switch; Fig 17 multiple fault domains from different power sources), wherein each host machine in the second subset of host machines is communicatively coupled to the second TOR switch ([0073] Each top-of-rack switch 1716 is connected to one or more sleds 1718 (which may be placed inside or associated with a rack device 1714), and wherein the second TOR is different than the first TOR and the first subset of host machines is disjoint from the second subset of host machines (Fig 17 Power Zone A and Power Zone C contain different TOR switches and also contain disjoint sleds; [0056] A fault domain may describe the structure or organization of the group of compute devices that are associated with a particular power zone. The fault domain may include rack devices, switch devices, power source devices, and sleds).
Regarding claim 4, Reddy teaches the method of claim 1.
Reddy further teaches wherein the availability domain corresponds to a datacenter located within a region (Fig 17 Datacenter 1).
Regarding claim 9, it is the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1 respectfully. Therefore, it is rejected for the same reasons as claim 1 respectfully.
Regarding claims 9-12, they are the non-transitory computer readable media of claims 1-4 respectfully. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons as claims 1-4 respectfully.
Regarding claims 17 and 19-20, they are the computing devices of claims 1-3 respectfully. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons as claims 1-3 respectfully.
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 5-7, 13-15, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.103 as being unpatentable over Reddy US 20190068466 A1 in view of Bansal et al. US 20230269201 A1.
Regarding claim 5, Reddy teaches the method of claim 1.
Reddy does not explicitly teach wherein the rack comprises a plurality of network virtualization devices (NVDs), and wherein a first subset of NVDs from the plurality of NVDs connects the first subset of host machines to the first TOR.
However, Bansal teaches wherein the rack comprises a plurality of network virtualization devices (NVDs), and wherein a first subset of NVDs from the plurality of NVDs connects the first subset of host machines to the first TOR switch ([0003] A typical computing rack of a cloud service provider may have at least one top-of-rack (ToR) switch (two or more if redundancy is provided) and a number of servers. Each of the servers may have a special cloud-based network interface card (NIC), which may be referred to as a smart NIC (“SmartNIC”).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have combined Bansal’s smartNIC networking devices with the existing system. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination to provide the resulting system with the advantage of coordinating virtual machine networking (see Bansal [0003] At a minimum, a SmartNIC may allow for each virtual machine (VM) to talk to any other VM through various types of virtual tunneling mechanisms. This may ensure that a virtual network can be instantiated in which all data communications are contained within the virtual network's boundaries and no other customer's VMs can communicate with it in any way).
Regarding claim 6, Reddy and Bansal teach the method of claim 5.
Bansal further teaches wherein a second subset of NVDs from the plurality of NVDs connects the second subset of host machines to the second TOR switch ([0036] other racks that contain servers with SmartNICs).
Regarding claim 7, Reddy teaches the method of claim 1.
Bansal further teaches further comprising: associating a first set of addresses corresponding to host machines included in the first subset of host machines with the first TOR switch; forwarding, by a control plane, a first packet destined for a first host machine included in the first subset of host machines to the first TOR switch ([0050] The network device may facilitate communications within networks in the data center, for example, by forwarding packets or other data communications as appropriate based on characteristics of such communications (e.g., header information including source and/or destination addresses, protocol identifiers, etc.) and/or the characteristics of the private network (e.g., routes based on network topology, etc.)).
Regarding claims 13-15, they are the non-transitory computer readable media of claims 5-7 respectfully. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons as claims 5-7 respectfully.
Regarding claim 18, it is the computing device of claim 5 respectfully. Therefore, it is rejected for the same reasons as claim 5 respectfully.
Claims 8, 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.103 as being unpatentable over Reddy US 20190068466 A1 in view of Mohammed et al. US 20180262563 A1.
Regarding claim 8, Reddy teaches the method of claim 1.
Reddy does not explicitly teach providing one or more fault domains included in the rack to a customer; obtaining a request requesting allocation of one or more host machines in the rack to the customer; and assigning the one or more host machines included in the one or more fault domains in accordance with the request.
However, Mohammed teaches providing one or more fault domains included in the rack to a customer; obtaining a request requesting allocation of one or more host machines in the rack to the customer; and assigning the one or more host machines included in the one or more fault domains in accordance with the request ([0040] a tenant creates virtual machine sets to be allocated in the distributed computing system and a cluster-tenant is associated with fault domains; [0049] At a high level, virtual machine sets for a tenant can be allocated to a distributed computing system based on tenant-defined availability parameters that allow for virtual machine set spanning or virtual machine set non-spanning at zone-tier, fault-tier and update-tier isolation tiers to meet tenant availability goals. Allocating virtual machines instances can specifically be based on instantiating cluster-tenants, for the virtual machine instances, across several computing clusters in different availability zones. For example, the availability management system 200 can be configured to allow one or more cluster-tenants per computing cluster for a virtual machine set. The availability manager 230 also allocates virtual machine sets to computing clusters and availability zones when scaling-out and scaling-in).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to have combined Mohammed’s cloud fault domain virtual resource allocation to tenants with the existing system. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination to provide the resulting system with the advantage of providing cloud customers with level of service availability guarantees (see Mohammed [0002] a comprehensive availability management system can be implemented to improve customer availability offerings and configurations for availability management in distributed computing systems).
Regarding claim 16, it is the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8 respectfully. Therefore, it is rejected for the same reasons as claim 8 respectfully.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated any new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/H.L./
Examiner, Art Unit 2195
/Aimee Li/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2195
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