DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Drawings
The drawings received on 27 September 2023 are objected to because:
Fig. 13, 17, and 18 fails to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(l) and (m), which states:
(l) Character of lines, numbers, and letters. All drawings must be made by a process which will give them satisfactory reproduction characteristics. Every line, number, and letter must be durable, clean, black (except for color drawings), sufficiently dense and dark, and uniformly thick and well-defined. ….
(m) Shading. The use of shading in views is encouraged if it aids in understanding the invention and if it does not reduce legibility. Shading is used to indicate the surface or shape of spherical, cylindrical, and conical elements of an object. Flat parts may also be lightly shaded. Such shading is preferred in the case of parts shown in perspective, but not for cross sections. See paragraph (h)(3) of this section. Spaced lines for shading are preferred. These lines must be thin, as few in number as practicable, and they must contrast with the rest of the drawings. As a substitute for shading, heavy lines on the shade side of objects can be used except where they superimpose on each other or obscure reference characters. Light should come from the upper left corner at an angle of 45°. Surface delineations should preferably be shown by proper shading. Solid black shading areas are not permitted, except when used to represent bar graphs or color.
Figures 13, 17, and 18 have non-black letters; and include solid black shading.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) 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. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. 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 – Trade Names
The use of trade name or a mark used in commerce, have been noted in this application.
See Spec. at 13 (Kubernetes).
See Spec. at 16 (BareMetal).
See Spec. at 23 (AWS).
These term should be accompanied by the generic terminology; furthermore the terms should be capitalized wherever it appears or, where appropriate, include a proper symbol indicating use in commerce such as ™, SM , or ® following the term.
Although the use of trade names and marks used in commerce (i.e., trademarks, service marks, certification marks, and collective marks) are permissible in patent applications, the proprietary nature of the marks should be respected and every effort made to prevent their use in any manner which might adversely affect their validity as commercial marks.
Specification – Abstract
Applicant is reminded of the proper language and format for an abstract of the disclosure.
The abstract should be in narrative form and generally limited to a single paragraph on a separate sheet within the range of 50 to 150 words in length. The abstract should describe the disclosure sufficiently to assist readers in deciding whether there is a need for consulting the full patent text for details.
The language should be clear and concise and should not repeat information given in the title. It should avoid using phrases which can be implied, such as, “The disclosure concerns,” “The disclosure defined by this invention,” “The disclosure describes,” etc. In addition, the form and legal phraseology often used in patent claims, such as “means” and “said,” should be avoided.
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because:
The abstract includes phrases which can be implied.
Examiner suggests amending the abstract to recite:
A method for deploying containerized applications. The method of some embodiments deploys a data collecting agent on a machine that operates on a host computer and executes a set of one or more workload applications. From this agent, the method receives data regarding consumption of a set of resources allocated to the machine by the set of workload applications. The method assesses excess capacity of the set of resources for use to execute a set of one or more containers, and then deploys the set of one or more containers on the machine to execute one or more containerized applications. In some embodiments, the set of workload applications are legacy workloads deployed on the machine before the installation of the data collecting agent. By deploying one or more containers on the machine, the method of some embodiments maximizes the usages of the machine, which was previously deployed to execute legacy non-containerized workloads.
A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
To determine if a claim is directed to patent ineligible subject matter, the Court has guided the Office to apply the Alice/Mayo test, which requires:
1. Determining if the claim falls within a statutory category;
2A. Determining if the claim is directed to a patent ineligible judicial exception consisting of a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or abstract idea; and
2B. If the claim is directed to a judicial exception, determining if the claim recites limitations or elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
See MPEP §2106.
Step 2A is a two prong inquiry. MPEP §2106.04(II)(A). Under 2A(i), the first prong, examiners evaluate whether a law of nature, natural phenomenon, or abstract idea is set forth or described in the claim. Abstract ideas include mathematical concepts, certain methods of organizing human activity, and mental processes. MPEP §2106.04(a)(2). Under 2A(ii), the second prong, examiners determine whether any additional limitations integrates the judicial exception into a practical application. MPEP §2106.04(d).
Claim 1 step 2A(i):
The claim(s) recite:
1. A method of optimizing placement of a plurality of machines within a cluster of two or more worker nodes on which the machines are deployed, the method comprising:
…:
performing a simulation that explores different placement of the machines among different combination of worker nodes;
presenting, in the report, a metric associated with the first placement for an administrator to evaluate to determine whether the placement should be selected;
when the first placement is selected, ….
Optimizing a placement of respective [virtual] machines within a cluster of worker nodes correspond with performing mental processes in the form of evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion.
Performing a simulation to explore different placement combinations is a mental process and/or mental calculations which can be performed mentally and/or with the aid of pen and paper.
Presenting and generating a metric for an administrator to evaluate corresponds with mental process evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion. The administrator evaluating the reported metrics is explicit recitation of mental process evaluation. Selecting a placement corresponds with the mental process evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion of the administrator.
This falls within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2). In particular, the instant claims are considered similar to the example of MPEP §2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A) “a claim to ‘collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis,’ where the data analysis steps are recited at a high level of generality such that they could practically be performed in the human mind, Electric Power Group v. Alstom, S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353-54, 119 USPQ2d 1739, 1741-42 (Fed. Cir. 2016).”
Claim 1 step 2A(ii):
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The claim(s) recite:
for the plurality of machines that are deployed on the cluster of worker nodes according to a current placement:
…
generating a report to display a first placement of the machines on a first set of worker nodes;
…, deploying the machines on a group of worker nodes as specified by the first placement.
The recitation “for the plurality of machines” corresponds with an identification of an intended field of use. Generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a field of use fails to integrate an abstract idea into a practical application. See MPEP §2106.05(h).
Generating a report on the results of the abstract evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion is extra solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g) (“An example of post-solution activity is an element that is not integrated into the claim as a whole, e.g., a printer that is used to output a report of fraudulent transactions.”).
Deploying the machines according to the result of the mental process evaluation is mere instruction to “apply” the result of the abstract idea. See MPEP §2106.05(f).
Claim 1 step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and in combination, because:
Limitations analyzed under MPEP §2106.05(f) and (h) in step 2A(ii) above are analyzed the same here under step 2B.
Regarding MPEP §2106.05(g), the claim(s) recite:
generating a report to display a first placement of the machines on a first set of worker nodes;
MPEP §2106.05(d) provides examples:
i. Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 (utilizing an intermediary computer to forward information);
iv. Storing and retrieving information in memory, Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 2015)
Generating a report to display corresponds with transmitting and storing information. Furthermore, US patent 5,850,560 Kang column lines 20-22 teach “It is of course conventional to display information and results of an operation performed by the computer as an image on a video monitor.”
When further considering the claims as a whole and as an ordered combination the claims fail to amount to significantly more than the judicially excepted abstract idea.
Claims 2 and 13 step 2A(i):
Dependent claims recite at least the identified judicially excepted subject matter of their parent claim(s).
The claim(s) recite:
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
receiving input from the administrator to modify one or more criteria used for the simulation;
performing the simulation again to identify a second placement of the machines on a second set of worker nodes;
Input from the administrator corresponds with evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion of the respective criteria to use.
Performing the simulation again is further recitation of repeating the calculations and evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion of the simulating to identify second placement decisions.
This falls within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2).
Claims 2 and 13 step 2A(ii):
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The claim(s) recite:
generating another report to display the second placement of the machines on the second set of worker nodes.
Generating a report on the results of the abstract evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion is extra solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g) (“An example of post-solution activity is an element that is not integrated into the claim as a whole, e.g., a printer that is used to output a report of fraudulent transactions.”).
Claims 2 and 13 step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and in combination, because:
Regarding MPEP §2106.05(g), the claim(s) recite:
generating a report to display a first placement of the machines on a first set of worker nodes;
MPEP §2106.05(d) provides examples:
i. Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 (utilizing an intermediary computer to forward information);
iv. Storing and retrieving information in memory, Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 2015)
Generating a report to display corresponds with transmitting and storing information. Furthermore, US patent 5,850,560 Kang column lines 20-22 teach “It is of course conventional to display information and results of an operation performed by the computer as an image on a video monitor.”
When further considering the claims as a whole and as an ordered combination the claims fail to amount to significantly more than the judicially excepted abstract idea.
Claims 3, 5, 14, and 16 step 2A(i):
Dependent claims recite at least the identified judicially excepted subject matter of their parent claim(s).
This falls within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2).
Claims 3, 5, 14, and 16 step 2A(ii):
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The claim(s) recite:
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the first and second set of worker nodes have one or more worker nodes in common.
The worker nodes having one or more worker nodes in common is a general linking to a field of use and/or technological environment. See MPEP §2106.05(h).
Claims 3, 5, 14, and 16 step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and in combination, because:
Limitations analyzed under MPEP §2106.05(h) in step 2A(ii) above are analyzed the same here under step 2B.
When further considering the claims as a whole and as an ordered combination the claims fail to amount to significantly more than the judicially excepted abstract idea.
Claims 4 and 15 step 2A(i):
Dependent claims recite at least the identified judicially excepted subject matter of their parent claim(s).
The claim(s) recite:
… said presentation of the two placements near each other allowing an administrator to view how the first placement is a more compact placement of the machines on the worker nodes than the second placement.
The administrator viewing the presentation is an explicit recitation of an observation. Observation is one of the subcategories of mental process.
An administrator determining how a placement is more compact than another corresponds with a respective mental process evaluation, judgment, or opinion of a respective compactness metric.
This falls within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2).
Claims 4 and 15 step 2A(ii):
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The claim(s) recite:
4. The method of claim 1, wherein the report comprises a presentation that displays the first placement near a second placement that represents a current deployment of the machines on a second set of worker nodes,
Displaying a first placement near a second placement corresponds with outputting or displaying a result of the abstract idea. Creating a display of each respective placement decision corresponds with extra solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g).
Claims 4 and 15 step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and in combination, because:
The concept of placing two things near each other for comparison is well-known. For example, The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word “Juxtapose” as “To place (two or more things) side by side, or close to one another, or (one thing) by the side of another” with usage documented as far back as 1851. OED cites “H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology (3rd edition) vol. I. ii. ii. 171 as “They are juxtaposed an contrasted.” Accordingly, the concept of placing one thing near a second thing to compare and contrast them is well-known.
When further considering the claims as a whole and as an ordered combination the claims fail to amount to significantly more than the judicially excepted abstract idea.
Claims 6 and 17 step 2A(i):
Dependent claims recite at least the identified judicially excepted subject matter of their parent claim(s).
This falls within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2).
Claims 6 and 17 step 2A(ii):
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The claim(s) recite:
6. The method of claim 4, wherein the report further comprises another presentation that displays an amount of resources consumed by the first placement and by the second placement in order to allow the administrator to view how the first placement consumed less resources than the second placement.
Displaying a first placement near a second placement corresponds with outputting or displaying a result of the abstract idea. Creating a display of each respective placement decision corresponds with extra solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g).
Claims 6 and 17 step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and in combination, because:
The concept of placing two things near each other for comparison is well-known. For example, The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word “Juxtapose” as “To place (two or more things) side by side, or close to one another, or (one thing) by the side of another” with usage documented as far back as 1851. OED cites “H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology (3rd edition) vol. I. ii. ii. 171 as “They are juxtaposed an contrasted.” Accordingly, the concept of placing one thing near a second thing to compare and contrast them is well-known.
When further considering the claims as a whole and as an ordered combination the claims fail to amount to significantly more than the judicially excepted abstract idea.
Claims 7 and 18 step 2A(i):
Dependent claims recite at least the identified judicially excepted subject matter of their parent claim(s).
The claim(s) recite:
in order to allow the administrator to view how the first placement is less expensive than the second placement.
An administrator comparing the cost and expense of respective placements corresponds with mental processes in the form of observation, evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion.
This falls within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2).
Claims 7 and 18 step 2A(ii):
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The claim(s) recite:
7. The method of claim 4, wherein the report further comprises another presentation that displays a cost of the first placement and a cost of the second placement
Displaying a first placement near a second placement corresponds with outputting or displaying a result of the abstract idea. Creating a display of each respective placement decision corresponds with extra solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g).
Claims 7 and 18 step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and in combination, because:
The concept of placing two things near each other for comparison is well-known. For example, The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word “Juxtapose” as “To place (two or more things) side by side, or close to one another, or (one thing) by the side of another” with usage documented as far back as 1851. OED cites “H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology (3rd edition) vol. I. ii. ii. 171 as “They are juxtaposed an contrasted.” Accordingly, the concept of placing one thing near a second thing to compare and contrast them is well-known.
When further considering the claims as a whole and as an ordered combination the claims fail to amount to significantly more than the judicially excepted abstract idea.
Claims 8 and 19 step 2A(i):
Dependent claims recite at least the identified judicially excepted subject matter of their parent claim(s).
The claim(s) recite:
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the report comprises a set of controls for an administrator to use to specify one or more constraints for re-running the simulation.
Specifying constraints correspond with adjusting calculations and/or evaluation, judgment, or opinion of the simulation.
This falls within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2).
Claims 8 and 19 step 2A(ii):
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
Claim(s) do not recite any “additional” limitations.
Claims 8 and 19 step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and in combination, because:
Claim(s) do not recite any “additional” limitations.
When further considering the claims as a whole and as an ordered combination the claims fail to amount to significantly more than the judicially excepted abstract idea.
Claims 9 and 20 step 2A(i):
Dependent claims recite at least the identified judicially excepted subject matter of their parent claim(s).
This falls within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2).
Claims 9 and 20 step 2A(ii):
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The claim(s) recite:
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the machines comprise Pods and the worker nodes comprise virtual machines or host computers.
The machines comprising Pods and the worker nodes comprising virtual machines or host computers is a general linking to a field of use and/or technological environment. See MPEP §2106.05(h).
Claims 9 and 20 step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and in combination, because:
Limitations analyzed under MPEP §2106.05(h) in step 2A(ii) above are analyzed the same here under step 2B.
When further considering the claims as a whole and as an ordered combination the claims fail to amount to significantly more than the judicially excepted abstract idea.
Claim 10 step 2A(i):
Dependent claims recite at least the identified judicially excepted subject matter of their parent claim(s).
This falls within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2).
Claim 10 step 2A(ii):
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The claim(s) recite:
10. The method of claim 1, wherein the machines comprise containers and the worker nodes comprise virtual machines or host computers.
The machines comprising containers and the worker nodes comprising virtual machines or host computers is a general linking to a field of use and/or technological environment. See MPEP §2106.05(h).
Claim 10 step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and in combination, because:
Limitations analyzed under MPEP §2106.05(h) in step 2A(ii) above are analyzed the same here under step 2B.
When further considering the claims as a whole and as an ordered combination the claims fail to amount to significantly more than the judicially excepted abstract idea.
Claim 11 step 2A(i):
Dependent claims recite at least the identified judicially excepted subject matter of their parent claim(s).
This falls within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2).
Claim 11 step 2A(ii):
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The claim(s) recite:
11. The method of claim 1, wherein the machines comprise virtual machines and the worker nodes comprise host computers.
The machines comprising virtual machines and the worker nodes comprising host computers is a general linking to a field of use and/or technological environment. See MPEP §2106.05(h).
Claim 11 step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and in combination, because:
Limitations analyzed under MPEP §2106.05(h) in step 2A(ii) above are analyzed the same here under step 2B.
When further considering the claims as a whole and as an ordered combination the claims fail to amount to significantly more than the judicially excepted abstract idea.
Claim 12 step 2A(i):
Dependent claims recite at least the identified judicially excepted subject matter of their parent claim(s).
The claim(s) recite:
the program for optimizing placement of a plurality of machines within a cluster of two or more worker nodes on which the machines are deployed, the program comprising sets of instructions for:
…
performing a simulation that explores different placement of the machines among different combination of worker nodes;
…
presenting, in the report, a metric associated with the first placement for an administrator to evaluate to determine whether the placement should be selected;
when the first placement is selected, ….
Optimizing a placement of respective [virtual] machines within a cluster of worker nodes correspond with performing mental processes in the form of evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion.
Performing a simulation to explore different placement combinations is a mental process and/or mental calculations which can be performed mentally and/or with the aid of pen and paper.
Presenting and generating a metric for an administrator to evaluate corresponds with mental process evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion. The administrator evaluating the reported metrics is explicit recitation of mental process evaluation. Selecting a placement corresponds with the mental process evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion of the administrator.
This falls within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2). In particular, the instant claims are considered similar to the example of MPEP §2106.04(a)(2)(III)(A) “a claim to ‘collecting information, analyzing it, and displaying certain results of the collection and analysis,’ where the data analysis steps are recited at a high level of generality such that they could practically be performed in the human mind, Electric Power Group v. Alstom, S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1353-54, 119 USPQ2d 1739, 1741-42 (Fed. Cir. 2016).”
Claim 12 step 2A(ii):
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because:
The claim(s) recite:
12. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for execution by a set of processing units, …
for the plurality of machines that are deployed on the cluster of worker nodes according to a current placement:
…
generating a report to display a first placement of the machines on a first set of worker nodes;
…, deploying the machines on a group of worker nodes as specified by the first placement.
The non-transitory machine readable medium is recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic computer performing generic computer functions) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. See MPEP §2106.05(b) (“Merely adding a generic computer, generic computer components, or a programmed computer to perform generic computer functions does not automatically overcome an eligibility rejection. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223-24, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983-84 (2014).”).
The recitation “for the plurality of machines” corresponds with an identification of an intended field of use. Generally linking the use of an abstract idea to a field of use fails to integrate an abstract idea into a practical application. See MPEP §2106.05(h).
Generating a report on the results of the abstract evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion is extra solution activity. See MPEP §2106.05(g) (“An example of post-solution activity is an element that is not integrated into the claim as a whole, e.g., a printer that is used to output a report of fraudulent transactions.”).
Deploying the machines according to the result of the mental process evaluation is mere instruction to “apply” the result of the abstract idea. See MPEP §2106.05(f).
Claim 12 step 2B:
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, when considered individually and in combination, because:
Limitations analyzed under MPEP §2106.05(b), (f), and (h) in step 2A(ii) above are analyzed the same here under step 2B.
Regarding MPEP §2106.05(g), the claim(s) recite:
generating a report to display a first placement of the machines on a first set of worker nodes;
MPEP §2106.05(d) provides examples:
i. Receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data, Symantec, 838 F.3d at 1321, 120 USPQ2d at 1362 (utilizing an intermediary computer to forward information);
iv. Storing and retrieving information in memory, Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 2015)
Generating a report to display corresponds with transmitting and storing information. Furthermore, US patent 5,850,560 Kang column lines 20-22 teach “It is of course conventional to display information and results of an operation performed by the computer as an image on a video monitor.”
When further considering the claims as a whole and as an ordered combination the claims fail to amount to significantly more than the judicially excepted abstract idea.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-3 and 10-14
Claims 1-3 and 10-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US patent 10,637,762 B1 Traylor, et al. [herein “Traylor”] in view of US patent 11,886,926 B1 Gadalin, et al. [herein “Gadalin”].
Claim 1 recites “1. A method of optimizing placement of a plurality of machines within a cluster of two or more worker nodes on which the machines are deployed.” Traylor column 8 line 6 disclose “a process to optimize resource provisioning and cost 410.” Traylor column 8 lines 10-11 teach “Finally, the choices made by the optimizer are used to perform provisioning, step 410.” Provisioning corresponds with placement of the machines within a cluster.
Traylor column 4 lines 7-19 disclose:
During provisioning, a service mediation device may translate the service and the corresponding parameters of the service to one or more services/parameters on the network elements involved using a provisioning logic algorithm. Server provisioning prepares a server with appropriate systems, data and software, and make it ready for network operation. Typical tasks when provisioning a server are to select a server from a pool of available servers, load the appropriate software (e.g., OS, drivers, middleware, applications), and appropriately customize and configure the system and change its parameters (e.g., such as address/gateway) to find associated network and storage resources.
Loading appropriate software corresponds with migrating respective software machines. The hardware server(s) corresponds with worker nodes on which the software is deployed.
Claim 1 further recites “the method comprising: for the plurality of machines that are deployed on the cluster of worker nodes according to a current placement: performing a simulation that explores different placement of the machines among different combination of worker nodes.” Traylor column 8 lines 1-2 disclose “simulate resource provisioning choices to explore how resource provisioning changes system reliability, step 408.” Simulating resource provisioning choices to explore changes to respective performance metrics corresponds with performing a simulation that explores different placement of machines with different combinations of resources.
Claim 1 further recites “generating a report to display a first placement of the machines on a first set of worker nodes.” Traylor does not explicitly disclose generating a report to display the placement; however, in analogous art of migrating workloads according to resource utilizations, Gadalin column 18 line 58 to column 19 line 2 teaches:
the user 106 may select a manual-migration option 420 where the migration component 224 determines that a new migration schedule is needed, and requests the user 106 approve, modify, and/or reject the new migration schedule. ….
It should be understood that the GUI 400 is merely illustrative and any type of user interface, or combination of user interfaces, may be utilized to prompt a user 106 for defining parameters of a migration rule 220.
See also Gadalin figure 4. The displayed GUI information corresponds with a generated report. The migration rules correspond with placement of respective machines.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Traylor and Gadalin. One having ordinary skill in the art would have found motivation to use user selection of migration schedules from a GUI into the system of optimizing allocated network resources and provisioning choices for the advantageous purpose to “indicate a desired balance between low cost and increased performance.” See Gadalin column 17 lines 61-62.
Claim 1 further recites “presenting, in the report, a metric associated with the first placement for an administrator to evaluate to determine whether the placement should be selected.” Traylor column 8 lines 3-9 teach:
The current estimate of system reliability, a collection of resource provisioning choices and associated reliability, and cost models for resource provisioning scenarios are inputs into a process to optimize resource provisioning and cost, 410. Note that costs include the costs of having the system fail to provide service, often resulting in lower revenue or an estimate of cost impact due to customer dissatisfaction.
The respective cost for resource provisioning scenario corresponds with a metric associated with a placement for an administrator to evaluate to determine whether or not a placement scenario should be selected.
Claim 1 further recites “when the first placement is selected, deploying the machines on a group of worker nodes as specified by the first placement.” Traylor column 8 lines 10-11 teach “Finally, the choices made by the optimizer are used to perform provisioning, step 410.” The choices made by the optimizer correspond with an administrator selecting respective provisioning scenarios. Performing the provisioning corresponds with a deploying of respective machines and/or worker nodes.
Claim 2 further recites “2. The method of claim 1 further comprising: receiving input from the administrator to modify one or more criteria used for the simulation; performing the simulation again to identify a second placement of the machines on a second set of worker nodes.” Traylor column 7 lines 56-66 disclose:
process 400 starts by monitoring system reliability to measure current system behavior and reliability, step 402. Notable events such as resource failures, changes in memory levels, number of clients in processing queues, etc., are recorded. A second starting point is to input or monitor resource charges to measure system costs for resource provisioning and ongoing use, step 403. Once data on reliability and costs are collected, the process updates the reliability models, step 404 and updates the resource provisioning cost models, step 405 to adapt to ongoing system changes.
Inputting updates to adapt to changes corresponds with receiving input to modify one or more criteria used for the simulation.
Traylor column 8 lines 12-13 disclose “the process 400 is cyclical and iterative, and starts over again on a defined time period.” Iterating and starting the process over again corresponds with performing the simulation again to identify another placement of the machines.
Claim 2 further recites “generating another report to display the second placement of the machines on the second set of worker nodes.” Traylor does not explicitly disclose generating a report to display the placement; however, in analogous art of migrating workloads according to resource utilizations, Gadalin column 18 line 58 to column 19 line 2 teaches:
the user 106 may select a manual-migration option 420 where the migration component 224 determines that a new migration schedule is needed, and requests the user 106 approve, modify, and/or reject the new migration schedule. ….
It should be understood that the GUI 400 is merely illustrative and any type of user interface, or combination of user interfaces, may be utilized to prompt a user 106 for defining parameters of a migration rule 220.
See also Gadalin figure 4. The displayed GUI information corresponds with a generated report. The migration rules correspond with placement of respective machines.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Traylor and Gadalin. One having ordinary skill in the art would have found motivation to use user selection of migration schedules from a GUI into the system of optimizing allocated network resources and provisioning choices for the advantageous purpose to “indicate a desired balance between low cost and increased performance.” See Gadalin column 17 lines 61-62.
Claim 3 further recites “3. The method of claim 2, wherein the first and second set of worker nodes have one or more worker nodes in common.” Traylor column 3 lines 62-63 disclose “The cloud thus allows access to shared pools of configurable resources that can be rapidly provisioned with minimal management effort.” Traylor column 8 lines 14-16 disclose “updates to the models can be set by the user or system administrator to any appropriate time period, such as hourly, daily.” A second set of placements determined hourly from a same shared pool of configurable resources corresponds with the first and second sets of works nodes (i.e. available servers where placement is conducted) having servers in common.
Claim 10 further recites “10. The method of claim 1, wherein the machines comprise containers and the worker nodes comprise virtual machines or host computers.” From the above list of alternatives Examiner is selecting “host computers.”
Traylor column 4 lines 7-19 disclose:
During provisioning, a service mediation device may translate the service and the corresponding parameters of the service to one or more services/parameters on the network elements involved using a provisioning logic algorithm. Server provisioning prepares a server with appropriate systems, data and software, and make it ready for network operation. Typical tasks when provisioning a server are to select a server from a pool of available servers, load the appropriate software (e.g., OS, drivers, middleware, applications), and appropriately customize and configure the system and change its parameters (e.g., such as address/gateway) to find associated network and storage resources.
The hardware server(s) and server systems corresponds with worker nodes host machines on which the software is deployed.
Traylor column 4 lines 47-49 disclose “During the lifecycle of system operations, resources such as virtual machines and containers are provisioned and decommissioned.” Provisioning containers corresponds with machines comprising containers.
Claim 11 further recites “11. The method of claim 1, wherein the machines comprise virtual machines and the worker nodes comprise host computers.” Traylor column 4 lines 47-49 disclose “During the lifecycle of system operations, resources such as virtual machines and containers are provisioned and decommissioned.” Provisioning virtual machines corresponds with machines comprising virtual machines.
Traylor column 4 lines 7-19 disclose:
During provisioning, a service mediation device may translate the service and the corresponding parameters of the service to one or more services/parameters on the network elements involved using a provisioning logic algorithm. Server provisioning prepares a server with appropriate systems, data and software, and make it ready for network operation. Typical tasks when provisioning a server are to select a server from a pool of available servers, load the appropriate software (e.g., OS, drivers, middleware, applications), and appropriately customize and configure the system and change its parameters (e.g., such as address/gateway) to find associated network and storage resources.
The hardware server(s) and server systems corresponds with worker nodes host machines on which the software is deployed.
Claim 12 recites “12. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program for execution by a set of processing units.” Traylor column 11 lines 48-51 disclose “software written in accordance with the present invention may be stored in some form of computer-readable medium, such as memory or CD-ROM.”
Claim 12 further recites “the program for optimizing placement of a plurality of machines within a cluster of two or more worker nodes on which the machines are deployed.” Traylor column 8 line 6 disclose “a process to optimize resource provisioning and cost 410.” Traylor column 8 lines 10-11 teach “Finally, the choices made by the optimizer are used to perform provisioning, step 410.” Provisioning corresponds with placement of the machines within a cluster.
Traylor column 4 lines 7-19 disclose:
During provisioning, a service mediation device may translate the service and the corresponding parameters of the service to one or more services/parameters on the network elements involved using a provisioning logic algorithm. Server provisioning prepares a server with appropriate systems, data and software, and make it ready for network operation. Typical tasks when provisioning a server are to select a server from a pool of available servers, load the appropriate software (e.g., OS, drivers, middleware, applications), and appropriately customize and configure the system and change its parameters (e.g., such as address/gateway) to find associated network and storage resources.
Loading appropriate software corresponds with migrating respective software machines. The hardware server(s) corresponds with worker nodes on which the software is deployed.
Claim 12 further recites “the program comprising sets of instructions for: for the plurality of machines that are deployed on the cluster of worker nodes according to a current placement: performing a simulation that explores different placement of the machines among different combination of worker nodes.” Traylor column 8 lines 1-2 disclose “simulate resource provisioning choices to explore how resource provisioning changes system reliability, step 408.” Simulating resource provisioning choices to explore changes to respective performance metrics corresponds with performing a simulation that explores different placement of machines with different combinations of resources.
Claim 12 further recites “generating a report to display a first placement of the machines on a first set of worker nodes.” Traylor does not explicitly disclose generating a report to display the placement; however, in analogous art of migrating workloads according to resource utilizations, Gadalin column 18 line 58 to column 19 line 2 teaches:
the user 106 may select a manual-migration option 420 where the migration component 224 determines that a new migration schedule is needed, and requests the user 106 approve, modify, and/or reject the new migration schedule. ….
It should be understood that the GUI 400 is merely illustrative and any type of user interface, or combination of user interfaces, may be utilized to prompt a user 106 for defining parameters of a migration rule 220.
See also Gadalin figure 4. The displayed GUI information corresponds with a generated report. The migration rules correspond with placement of respective machines.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Traylor and Gadalin. One having ordinary skill in the art would have found motivation to use user selection of migration schedules from a GUI into the system of optimizing allocated network resources and provisioning choices for the advantageous purpose to “indicate a desired balance between low cost and increased performance.” See Gadalin column 17 lines 61-62.
Claim 12 further recites “presenting, in the report, a metric associated with the first placement for an administrator to evaluate to determine whether the placement should be selected.” Traylor column 8 lines 3-9 teach:
The current estimate of system reliability, a collection of resource provisioning choices and associated reliability, and cost models for resource provisioning scenarios are inputs into a process to optimize resource provisioning and cost, 410. Note that costs include the costs of having the system fail to provide service, often resulting in lower revenue or an estimate of cost impact due to customer dissatisfaction.
The respective cost for resource provisioning scenario corresponds with a metric associated with a placement for an administrator to evaluate to determine whether or not a placement scenario should be selected.
Claim 12 further recites “when the first placement is selected, deploying the machines on a group of worker nodes as specified by the first placement.” Traylor column 8 lines 10-11 teach “Finally, the choices made by the optimizer are used to perform provisioning, step 410.” The choices made by the optimizer correspond with an administrator selecting respective provisioning scenarios. Performing the provisioning corresponds with a deploying of respective machines and/or worker nodes.
Dependent claims 13 and 14 are substantially similar to claims 2 and 3 above and are rejected for the same reasons.
Dependent Claims 4-9 and 15-20
Claims 4-9 and 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Traylor and Gadalin as applied to claims 1 and 12 above, and further in view of Ruíz, L., et al. “Autoscaling Pods on an On-Premise Kubernetes Infrastructure QoS-Aware” IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 33083-33094 (March 2022) [herein “Ruiz”].
Claim 4 further recites “4. The method of claim 1, wherein the report comprises a presentation that displays the first placement near a second placement that represents a current deployment of the machines on a second set of worker nodes.” Traylor does not explicitly disclose generating a report to display the placement; however, in analogous art of migrating workloads according to resource utilizations, Gadalin column 18 line 58 to column 19 line 2 teaches:
the user 106 may select a manual-migration option 420 where the migration component 224 determines that a new migration schedule is needed, and requests the user 106 approve, modify, and/or reject the new migration schedule. ….
It should be understood that the GUI 400 is merely illustrative and any type of user interface, or combination of user interfaces, may be utilized to prompt a user 106 for defining parameters of a migration rule 220.
See also Gadalin figure 4. The displayed GUI information corresponds with a generated report. The migration rules correspond with placement of respective machines.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Traylor and Gadalin. One having ordinary skill in the art would have found motivation to use user selection of migration schedules from a GUI into the system of optimizing allocated network resources and provisioning choices for the advantageous purpose to “indicate a desired balance between low cost and increased performance.” See Gadalin column 17 lines 61-62.
Claim 4 further recites “said presentation of the two placements near each other allowing an administrator to view how the first placement is a more compact placement of the machines on the worker nodes than the second placement.” Neither Traylor nor Gadalin explicitly disclose presenting the two placements near each other; however, in analogous art of autoscaling Pods on Kubernetes infrastructure, Ruiz page 33090 shows figures 7 and 8 are adjacent to each other.
Ruiz page 33090 left column third paragraph teaches:
Figure 8 shows better usage of the resource compared with Kubernetes alone. See Figure 7. When comparing both results, it must be pointed out that QoS provides better resources utilization keeping the hosts busy by scaling the pods up and down on demand.
Comparing both results indicates an administrator would be capable of viewing how the two placements compare with respective performance metrics. Furthermore, better resource utilization corresponds with being a more compact placement.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Traylor, Gadalin, and Ruiz. One having ordinary skill in the art would have found motivation to use comparing results into the system of optimizing allocated network resources and provisioning choices for the advantageous purpose of finding better utilization of resources. See Ruiz page 33090 left column third paragraph.
Dependent claim 5 is substantially similar to claim 3 above and is rejected for the same reasons.
Claim 6 further recites “6. The method of claim 4, wherein the report further comprises another presentation that displays an amount of resources consumed by the first placement and by the second placement in order to allow the administrator to view how the first placement consumed less resources than the second placement.” Ruiz page 33090 shows a z-axis of “% of CPU usage.” The percentage of CPU usage corresponds with an amount of resource consumed. Accordingly, an administrator would have been able to view how respective placements consume resources.
Claim 7 further recites “7. The method of claim 4, wherein the report further comprises another presentation that displays a cost of the first placement and a cost of the second placement in order to allow the administrator to view how the first placement is less expensive than the second placement.” Traylor abstract disclose “estimating a cost based on the monitored resource charges; and allocating network resources based the estimated cost and simulated resource provisioning choices.” The cost corresponds with a cost of the respective placements.
Ruiz page 33090 teaches a presentation display capable of comparison as discussed above.
Traylor does not explicitly disclose generating a report to display the placement; however, in analogous art of migrating workloads according to resource utilizations, Gadalin column 18 line 58 to column 19 line 2 teaches:
the user 106 may select a manual-migration option 420 where the migration component 224 determines that a new migration schedule is needed, and requests the user 106 approve, modify, and/or reject the new migration schedule. ….
It should be understood that the GUI 400 is merely illustrative and any type of user interface, or combination of user interfaces, may be utilized to prompt a user 106 for defining parameters of a migration rule 220.
See also Gadalin figure 4 showing respective “low cost” tradeoffs. Gadalin column 17 lines 62-65 teach “user 106 may specify, for multiple different computing resource types 406, 408, 410, and 412, whether they would like to err on low cost or increased performance.” Thus Gadalin teaches displaying a cost within the presented display.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Traylor and Gadalin. One having ordinary skill in the art would have found motivation to use user selection of migration schedules from a GUI into the system of optimizing allocated network resources and provisioning choices for the advantageous purpose to “indicate a desired balance between low cost and increased performance.” See Gadalin column 17 lines 61-62.
Claim 8 further recites “8. The method of claim 1, wherein the report comprises a set of controls for an administrator to use to specify one or more constraints for re-running the simulation.” Traylor column 4 lines 39-43 disclose “a resource allocation component 112 that allows for dynamic resource allocation for software defined infrastructures based on reliability models and cost considerations, rather than simple trigger conditions.” Reliability is related and similar to a constraint on the resource allocation.
Traylor column 8 lines 7-9 disclose “Note that costs include the costs of having the system fail to provide service, often resulting in lower revenue or an estimate of cost impact due to customer dissatisfaction.” Failing to provide a service corresponds and relates to a violation of a service level agreement.
Traylor does not explicitly disclose generating a report to display the placement; however, in analogous art of migrating workloads according to resource utilizations, Gadalin column 18 line 58 to column 19 line 2 teaches:
the user 106 may select a manual-migration option 420 where the migration component 224 determines that a new migration schedule is needed, and requests the user 106 approve, modify, and/or reject the new migration schedule. ….
It should be understood that the GUI 400 is merely illustrative and any type of user interface, or combination of user interfaces, may be utilized to prompt a user 106 for defining parameters of a migration rule 220.
See also Gadalin figure 4. The displayed GUI information corresponds with a generated report. The migration rules correspond with
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Traylor and Gadalin. One having ordinary skill in the art would have found motivation to use user selection of migration schedules from a GUI into the system of optimizing allocated network resources and provisioning choices for the advantageous purpose “to ensure that the selected VM instance types 130 will be able to provide sufficient computing resources to achieve the performance targets for the different timeframes that they are used to host the workloads 120.” See Gadalin column 18 lines 20-29.
Gadalin column 18 lines 20-29 teach “The user 106 may use input mechanisms to select performance targets 404 for one or more of a compute target 406, a memory target 408, a storage target 410, and/or a network I/O target 412.” The respective resource targets each correspond with specified constraints for the provisioning. But Gadalin’s performance targets are not integrated into the simulation as taught by Traylor.
Accordingly, neither Traylor nor Gadalin explicitly teach simulating the resource provisioning choices of Traylor with constraints. However, in analogous art of autoscaling Pods on Kubernetes infrastructure, Ruiz page 33083 right column teaches “Regardless of their underlying architecture, cloud services and applications are strictly governed by quality of service (QoS) constraints regarding such metrics as efficiency, availability,
reliability, and power awareness.” QoS constraints correspond with constraints.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Traylor, Gadalin, and Ruiz. One having ordinary skill in the art would have found motivation to use quality of service constraints into the system of optimizing allocated network resources and provisioning choices for the advantageous purpose “to design and implement a monitoring service that tracks and integrates monitoring data from all the microservices and datacenter's resources. With this information, the QoS service implements policies and performs actions to guarantee the SLOs regarding resource usage.” See Ruiz page 33084 right column fourth paragraph.
Claim 9 further recites “9. The method of claim 1, wherein the machines comprise Pods and the worker nodes comprise virtual machines or host computers.” Examiner interprets Pods as a group of containers.
From the above list of alternatives Examiner is selecting “virtual machines.”
Traylor does not explicitly disclose Pods; however, in analogous art of autoscaling Pods on Kubernetes infrastructure, Ruiz title teaches “Autoscaling Pods on an On-Premise Kubernetes Infrastructure QoS-Aware.” Ruiz page 33084 right column last bullet item teaches “Enhance the performance of pod-level Kubernetes auto scalers.” A pod-level autoscaler corresponds with Pods as respective machines.
Ruiz page 33085 left column fourth bullet item teaches “the cluster is deployed on virtual machines, which act as Kubernetes Nodes and run on a cloud infrastructure.” Being deployed on virtual machines acting as nodes corresponds with virtual machines comprising the respective nodes.
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Traylor, Gadalin, and Ruiz. One having ordinary skill in the art would have found motivation to use autoscaling of Pods into the system of optimizing allocated network resources and provisioning choices for the advantageous purpose “to design and implement a monitoring service that tracks and integrates monitoring data from all the microservices and datacenter's resources. With this information, the QoS service implements policies and performs actions to guarantee the SLOs regarding resource usage.” See Ruiz page 33084 right column fourth paragraph.
Dependent claims 15-18 are substantially similar to claims 4-7 above and are rejected for the same reasons.
Dependent claims 19 and 20 are substantially similar to claims 8 and 9 above and are rejected for the same reasons.
Conclusion
Prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 2011/0225277 A1 FREIMUTH; DOUGLAS M. et al.
teaches
Placement of Virtual Machines Based on Server Cost and Network Cost
US 2020/0257512 A1 IYENGAR GORUR KRISHNA; Ranganath
Efficient Scaling of a Container-Based Application in a Distributed Computing System
US 10,305,747 B2 Shahab; Abin et al.
Container-based multi-tenant computing infrastructure
US 9,300,553 B2 Dube; Parijat et al.
Scaling a cloud infrastructure
US 10,031,785 B2 Gonzalez; Emmanuel B. et al.
Predictive computing resource allocation for distributed environments
Rodriguez, M. & Buyya, R. “Containers Orchestration with Cost-Efficient Autoscaling in Cloud Computing Environments” arXiv:1812.00300v1 (2018)
Horizontal and vertical autoscalers for container software packages.
Ramirez, Y., et al. “Capacity-Driven Scaling Schedules Derivation for Coordinated Elasticity of Containers and Virtual Machines” IEEE Int’l Conf. on Autonomic Computing, ICAC (2019)
“Explore potential improvements of autoscaling by designing and evaluating several predictive based autoscaling policies”
“Autoscaling tries to ensure that Service Level Objectives (SLOs) are not violated.”
Balla, D., et al. “Adaptive scaling of Kubernetes pods” IEEE IFIP Network Operations and Management Symp., NOMS (2020)
Kubernetes horizontal and vertical scaling.
Multi-threaded applications.
Baresi, L., & Quattrocchi, G. “A Simulation-based Comparison between Industrial Autoscaling Solutions and COCOS for Cloud Applications” IEEE Int’l Conf. on Web Services, ICWS, pp. 94-101 (2020)
Page 98 section IV teach “developed a simulator called RAS (Resource Allocation Simulator). RAS is a lightweight simulation environment, written in Python, that allows one to mock different autoscaling solutions.”
Ghirardini, F., et al. “Model-Driven Simulation for Performance Engineering of Kubernetes-Style Cloud Cluster Architectures” Advances in Service-Oriented & Cloud Computing, pp. 7-20 (2018)
Self-adaptive container cluster management.
Palladio Eclipse plugin as the simulation environment for a Kubernetes platform.
Nguyen, T.T., et al. “Horizontal Pod Autoscaling in Kubernetes for Elastic Container Orchestration” Sensors: Edge/Fog Computing Tech. for IoT Infrastructure (2020)
Review of Kubernetes horizontal pod autoscaling
Ding, Z., Huang, Q. “COPA: A Combined Autoscaling Method for Kubernetes” IEEE Int’l Conf. on Web Services, ICWS, pp. 416-425 (2021)
Recommending scaling schemes;
“calculate a combined scaling scheme that aims to minimize the default cost and resource cost.”
Tran, M.N., et al. “A Survey of Autoscaling in Kubernetes” IEEE 13th Int’l Conf. on Ubiquitous & Future Networks, ICUFN, pp. 263-265 (July 2022)
Technology background on Kubernetes autoscaling
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jay B Hann whose telephone number is (571)272-3330. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10am-7pm EDT.
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, Renee Chavez can be reached at (571) 270-1104. 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.
/Jay Hann/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2186 9 October 2026
