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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1 – 20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 2, 5 – 10, 12, 13, and 15 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bonas et al. (US Patent Application Publication 2020/0358846), hereinafter Bonas, in view of Yancey (US Patent Application Publication 2011/0246419, cited in previous action).
Regarding claim 1, Bonas teaches a method, comprising:
hosting a first database instance of a first version of a database within a computing environment, wherein at least one application utilizes the database for operation (Abstract, there is a first version of an application. Paragraphs 0023/0024, the application may be a database server);
deploying a second database instance of a second version of the database within the computing environment (Abstract, there is a second version of the application);
determining a plurality of routing rules each indicative of a portion of a plurality of requests to be routed to each of a plurality of database instances (Abstract, determining an amount of traffic to route to the second version; Paragraphs 0015 and 0054, the proportion may progressively increase, i.e. there are multiple routing rules indicating a progressively changing amount of traffic);
routing a first portion of requests associated with the at least one application to the first database instance and a second portion of the requests to the second database instance based on a first routing rule of the plurality of routing rules (Abstract, routing an amount of traffic to the second version of the application); and
monitoring operation of the second database instance to determine whether to progress to a second routing rule of the plurality of routing rules (Paragraphs 0051 – 0054, determining workload information related to the versions of the applications and the errors they produce, and determining an amount of traffic to be routed in view of the second traffic information), where the second routing rule increases the second portion of the requests to the second database instance from the first routing rule while providing for routing at least some requests to the first database instance (Paragraph 0054, in view of the second traffic information, routing a progressively increasing amount of traffic; Paragraph 0002, gradually rolling out the update, and determining if the canary is satisfactory).
Bonas does not explicitly teach configuring the first database instance with a first trigger for propagating data changes from the first database instance to the second database instance, nor configuring the second database instance with a second trigger for propagating data changes from the second database instance to the first database instance (Although Bonas describes that the first instance may have replica nodes within the first database, and likewise for the second instance, it does not explicitly teach that the first and second databases may have a symmetric replication relationship with one another; Bonas is further directed to a routing system for updates of general applications, with databases being one example, and as such does not teach details on cases particular to database applications).
Yancey teaches a method to reduce downtime during maintenance of a database, comprising configuring the first database instance with a first trigger for propagating data changes from the first database instance to the second database instance (Paragraph 0009, data is copied from a source database to a target database), and configuring the second database instance with a second trigger for propagating data changes from the second database instance to the first database instance (Paragraph 0009, changes to the target database during maintenance are captured and replicated to the source database).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that, if Bonas is applied to a database application as indicated in Bonas paragraphs 0023/0024, there would be a trigger for propagating data changes from the first database instance to the second database instance, and vice versa, as taught by Yancey. It would be obvious because mapping to and from a schema and replicating modifications to a database is known existing technology (Yancey paragraph 0058) and replication is common in database systems (Yancey paragraph 0055/0064). Furthermore, it would be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art that, if the data changes are not propagated, then downtime may not be meaningfully reduced. If the user attempts to access a data change that was not propagated, they may obtain an unexpected or undesired result.
Regarding claim 2, Bonas in view of Yancey teaches the method of claim 1, wherein monitoring operation of the second database instance includes detecting a failure associated with the second database instance (Bonas paragraphs 0002 and 0052, errors may be detected in the handling by the second instance/canary version), stopping routing based on the first routing rule in response to detecting the failure, and redirecting the second portion of the requests from the second database instance to the first database instance in response to detecting the failure (Bonas paragraph 0002, in canary deployments, if the canary version’s performance is not satisfactory, requests are routed back to the first instance/old version).
Regarding claim 5, Bonas in view of Yancey teaches the method of claim 1, wherein monitoring operation of the second database instance includes:
monitoring at least one of request results metrics (Bonas paragraph 0052, traffic information including requests handled);
and applying at least one monitoring rule to determine whether the second database instance is operating successfully (Bonas paragraph 0052, the threshold number of errors).
Regarding claim 6, Bonas in view of Yancey teaches the method of claim 1, comprising:
detecting successful operation of the second database instance (Bonas paragraph 0002, no errors reported with respect to the canary; Bonas paragraph 0052, determining the number of requests that the second version handled without error);
progressing to the second routing rule in response to detecting the successful operation of the second database instance (Bonas paragraph 0054, progressively increasing the traffic routed to the second version, and routing traffic in view of traffic information).
Regarding claim 7, Bonas in view of Yancey teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: monitoring operation of the second database instance to determine whether to progress to a third routing rule of the plurality of routing rules, where the third routing rule increases the second portion of the requests to the second database instance from the second routing rule (Bonas paragraphs 0002 and 0054, progressively increasing the amount of traffic routed to the second version in view of traffic information / the success of the second version).
Regarding claim 8, Bonas in view of Yancey teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of routing rules are based on at least one of:
a percentage of the requests, wherein the first routing rule is indicative of a first percentage of requests being routed to the first database instance and a second percentage of requests being routed to the second database instance (Bonas paragraph 0030, 90% to the first version and 10% to the second version), wherein the second routing rule is indicative of a third percentage of requests being routed to the first database instance and a fourth percentage of requests being routed to the second database instance (Bonas paragraphs 0002/0054, increasing the traffic routed to the second version; Bonas paragraph 0058, 20% of the traffic being routed to the second version);
a date/time window for the requests, wherein the first routing rule is indicative of the first portion of the requests being routed to the first database instance during a first date/time window and the second portion of the requests being routed to the second database instance during the first date/time window (Bonas paragraphs 0013/0014, the routing may be based on an amount of traffic within a time frame).
Regarding claim 9, Bonas in view of Yancey teaches the method of claim 1, wherein:
the computing environment includes a first region and a second region (Bonas Fig. 1, the multiple hosts, or alternatively multiple clouds);
the first database instance of the first version of the database is deployed within the first region (Bonas paragraph 0043, multiple instances of the first version can be deployed on suitable nodes);
the second database instance of the second version of the database is deployed within the second region (Bonas paragraph 0044, multiple instances of the second version can be deployed on suitable nodes);
deploying a first duplicate instance of the first version of the database within the second region; and
deploying a second duplicate instance of the second version of the database within the first region (Bonas paragraph 0025, there may be replica instances of the service. As stated above regarding Bonas paragraphs 0043/0044, replica instances of both versions can be deployed on any suitable node.).
Regarding claim 10, Bonas in view of Yancey teaches the method of claim 9.
Bonas in view of Yancey as applied to claim 1 does not explicitly teach, in response to detecting a failure within the first region, re-routing requests to the first instance of the first version of the database and the second duplicate instance of the second version of the database to the first duplicate instance of the first version of the database and the second database instance of the second version of the database (The combination of Bonas and Yancey as applied to claim 1 teaches replication between all versions of the database, but does not explicitly teach that replication is for failover).
Yancey teaches, in response to detecting a failure within the first region, re-routing requests to the first instance of the first version of the database and the second duplicate instance of the second version of the database to the first duplicate instance of the first version of the database and the second database instance of the second version of the database (Yancey paragraph 0055, redirecting requests may be typical where the database is replicated for the sake of failover.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the replication of Bonas could be applied for the purpose of failover as taught by Yancey. It would be obvious a failure of a region would be disadvantageous to the performance of the system, and because replication for failover is well-known (Yancey paragraph 0055). One of ordinary skill in the art would be driven to take advantage of a known trait of the existing replication capabilities of Bonas and Yancey.
Regarding claim 12, claim 12 recites similar language to claim 1, which is similarly taught by Bonas in view of Yancey as applied to claim 1, with the exception that claim 12 operates on “database schema” while claim 1 operates on “databases”.
The combination of Bonas and Yancey as applied to claim 1 does not explicitly state that the database instances are database schemas (The term ‘schema’ is not used in Bonas, and the combination as applied to claim 1 is with respect to replication and not the structure of the database).
Yancey further teaches that database instances can be database schemas (Paragraph 0058, claim 12).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention that the database instances of the combined system of Bonas and Yancey would be database schemas. It would be obvious because database schemas are a well-known part of the structure of a database (Yancey paragraph 0047). One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that, given Bonas is concerned with multiple types of application rather than specifics of database implementation, databases would be implemented according to commonly known implementations, which would contain schemas such as those described by Yancey. It would also be advantageous to consider schemas, as it allows data to be mirrored across databases with differing structures (Yancey paragraph 0058).
Claim 12 otherwise recites similar language to claim 1, and is similarly rejected.
Claim 13 recites similar language to claim 2, and is similarly rejected.
Claim 15 recites similar language to claim 5, and is similarly rejected.
Claim 16 recites similar language to claim 6, and is similarly rejected.
Claim 17 recites similar language to claim 7, and is similarly rejected.
Claim 18 recites similar language to claim 8, and is similarly rejected.
Claim 19 recites similar language to claim 1, 5 and 6, and is similarly rejected.
Regarding claim 20, Bonas in view of Yancey teaches the method of claim 19, wherein the plurality of routing rules includes a third routing rule that specifies a third portion of received database requests to route to the second version of the database, the third portion being larger than the second portion (Bonas paragraphs 0015, 0035 and 0054, the routing module progressively increases the amount of traffic routed to the second version until the maximum amount is routed).
Claims 3, 4 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bonas in view of Yancey as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Anaya (US Patent Application Publication 2013/0318221, cited in previous action).
Regarding claim 3, Bonas in view of Yancey teaches the method of claim 2.
Bonas in view of Yancey does not explicitly teach executing a remedial action to recover from the failure, nor in response to detecting completion of the remedial action, restarting routing based on the first routing rule (Bonas is concerned with mitigating the range of effects of the failure rather than steps taken following the failure).
Anaya teaches executing a remedial action to recover from the failure of a second version of a database (Paragraph 0092, restoring site A), and in response to detecting completion of the remedial action, restarting routing based on the first routing rule (Paragraph 0092, initiating a redirect to restore the original configuration).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention that, in the event of a failure in the system of Bonas, a remedial action would be taken to recover from the failure, and routing would be restarted based on the first routing rule, as taught by Anaya. It would be obvious because a failure of the canary indicates that there is some issue that needs to be resolved. The claim amounts to solving the issue, and making another attempt to update the system. The canary version is an updated version of the application meant to test its performance (Bonas paragraph 0002), and as such one would be motivated to eventually roll it out to the full userbase after its performance is verified. Once the issue has been resolved, one of ordinary skill in the art would attempt to roll out the canary version again to test if its performance is now satisfactory. It would be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art that it would be advantageous to solve the issue and make another attempt to fulfill the goal of updating the system to the new version.
Regarding claim 4, Bonas in view of Yancey and Anaya teaches the method of claim 3, wherein the remedial action comprises at least one of:
sending a notification to an administration platform, the notification including information related to the failure (Anaya paragraph 0050, prompting an operator);
sending a request to redeploy the second database instance (Anaya paragraph 0092, the initiation of the workload redirect. The second attempt described above with respect to claim 3 would also be a request to redeploy the second database instance).
Claim 14 recites similar language to claims 3 and 4, and is similarly rejected.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bonas in view of Yancey as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Burtoft (US Patent Application Publication 2023/0153404).
Regarding claim 11, Bonas in view of Yancey teaches the method of claim 1, wherein monitoring operation of the second database instance includes utilizing a monitoring tool to detect deviations from expected performance (The errors detected in Bonas paragraphs 0051 – 0054 are deviations from expected performance).
Bonas in view of Yancey does not teach the method of claim 1, wherein monitoring operation of the second database instance includes utilizing an artificial intelligence monitoring tool to detect deviations from expected performance (Bonas does not teach that the monitoring is performed by machine learning).
Burtoft teaches a method for monitoring transactions in a database for deviations from expected performance using an artificial intelligence monitoring tool (Paragraph 0004).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the errors of Bonas could be detected by an artificial intelligence monitoring tool as taught by Burtoft. It would be obvious because machine learning techniques can advantageously adapt its view of expected performance to particular users and databases (Burtoft paragraph 0026). Furthermore, artificial intelligence is a broad term which may include a wide range of techniques. The task of detecting deviations from expected performance requires knowledge of expected performance and the ability to identify deviations. A reasonably broad interpretation of artificial intelligence may consider any computer that can perform this task to be an artificial intelligence monitoring tool.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Smith et al. (US Patent Application 2016/0197844) teaches a similar routing system for upgrading a database, but is not relied upon because its method is not obviously compatible with propagating data changes between the data instances. However, it teaches that zero-downtime upgrade methods are known in the art.
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/B.P.H./ Examiner, Art Unit 2114
/JOSEPH O SCHELL/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2114