The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Detailed Action
Claim(s) 1-22 has/have been examined.Claim(s) 1-22 have been rejected.
Response to Arguments
The argument submitted April 10, 2026 have been fully considered but are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that Cunliffe does not teach a bidirectional sequence in which the storage system sends an indication of faulted replication state to a host. The examiner notes that the rejection relies on Kodama to teach this aspect of the claimed system.
Applicant argues that Cunliffe does not teach “receiving, by the first storage system from the host in response to the indication, a request indicating a remedial action to be performed by the first storage system.” This argument is moot in view of the new grounds of rejection which addresses these limitations using Kodama.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-4 and 9-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kodama (PG-PUB 2006/0031594) in view of Wikipedia's API (historical version published August 6, 2026).Regarding claim 1, Kodama discloses a method comprising:
determining, by a first storage system, that the first storage system has entered a faulted state comprising a failure of replication of updates to the object store to a second storage system due to an inability of the first storage system to communicate with the second storage system (paragraph 17, a failure is indicated if the failover host fails to receive a heartbeat message within a span of time; this is a failure to communicate with the secondary system. Paragraph 48 describes the secondary volume serving as a failover volume in a case whether the primary volume goes offline for some reason, possibly due to failure), wherein the first storage system is one of a plurality of storage systems and is a source for replicating an object store (see abstract, the second storage system replicates data in the first storage system);
sending, by the first storage system, to a host utilizing the object store, an indication that the first storage system has entered the faulted state (paragraph 17, a host is notified of a storage system failure by receiving a failure response or by timing out waiting for a response; also as in paragraph 82).
receiving, by the first storage system from a host in response to the indication, a request indicating a remedial action to be performed by the first storage system (paragraphs 66 and 69, a virtual volume manager located in the host determines that a volume is not available and commands the storage system to change pair status to “split”; this is part of a its fault handling process because the replication status may proceed to “synced” again as in Figure 2c).
Kodama does not expressly disclose the method wherein the indication is provided through an API.
Kodama teaches that a command line interface allows a user to interactively configure a virtual volume (paragraph 47).
Wikipedia's API teaches general information about API usage as a method of allowing communication between computer programs (page 1).
Prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the storage failover system disclosed by Kodama such that an API provides status information and interactivity to a user program. This modification would have been obvious because use of an API allows other software to receive the program information (Wikipedia's API page 1) including another computer joined by the internet (Wikipedia's API bottom of page 1, top of page 2).
Regarding claim 2, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the first storage system pauses service of the replicated object store in response to entering the faulted state (Kodama paragraph 10, data migration from storage system A to storage system B requires stopping all I/O activity in storage system A).
Regarding claim 3, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
identifying that the request indicates that the first storage system should locally disable servicing of the replicated object store (Kodama paragraph 10, data migration from storage system A to storage system B requires stopping all I/O activity in storage system A); and
discontinuing, by the first storage system, service to the replicated object store (Kodama paragraph 10, operation using the primary storage is discontinued, therefore updates from the primary storage are not replicated).
Regarding claim 4, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
servicing, by the first storage system in response to the request, the replicated object store (Kodama paragraph 129, use of primary volume X-P continues); and
discontinuing, by the first storage system, replication of updates to the object store to the second storage system (Kodama paragraph 129, data duplication to X-S1 will not occur due to the failure).
Regarding claim 9, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
providing, through the API, another indication of which storage system of the plurality of storage systems the first storage system is unable to replicate updates (Kodama paragraph 18, split operation causes data to not be replicated to Volume X-P; the status of the system, for example synced or reverse-synced as in paragraphs 54-56, should be indicated by the API as described in Wikipedia's API).
Regarding claim 10, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
providing, through the API, another indication of one or more storage systems that are currently operating to service the object store (Kodama paragraph 18, a user application accesses the active host) and
to which storage systems each of the one or more storage systems is currently successfully replicating updates (Kodama paragraph 47 and Table 1 within the paragraph, the primary and secondary assignments are configurable; their configuration via API is obvious in view of Wikipedia's API).
Regarding claim 11, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the first storage system and the second storage system have a symmetrical replication relationship (Kodama paragraph 16).
Regarding claim 12, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 11, wherein the symmetrical replication relationship uses an eventual consistency model (Kodama paragraph 16, asynchronous replication may be used).
Regarding claim 13, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 11, wherein the symmetrical replication relationship uses a synchronous replication model (Kodama paragraph 16, synchronous replication may be used).
Regarding claim 14, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the first storage system and the second storage system are in separate geographic regions (Kodama paragraph 120, the storage systems are in different locations).
Regarding claim 15, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the first storage system and the second storage system are in separate availability zones (Kodama paragraph 120, the storage systems are in different locations).
Regarding claim 16, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, wherein normal operation resumes when the fault is resolved (Kodama paragraph 62, remote copy operation may be restarted at some point; it would be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art that resuming a remote copying configuration allows the system to act as though the failure is resolved).
Regarding claim 17, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of storage systems are reconfigured to replace a faulted storage system (Kodama paragraph 10, the system is reconfigured to use volume X-S in storage system B instead of Volume X-P in storage system A).
Regarding claim 18, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the API is provided by at least one of the first storage system or an object store platform associated with the first storage system (Kodama paragraph 47, the command line interface to the storage system allows a user to interactively configure a virtual volume for storage; the language of "API is provided by" is a bit unusual and the examiner is interpreting the phrase as the "API is used to interface with" a target).
Regarding claims 19 and 20, these claims recite limitations found in claim 1 and are rejected on the same grounds as claim 1.
Regarding claim 21, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the remedial action comprises pausing service to the object store in response to receiving the request (Kodama Figure 2c, the split mode may transition to non-pair in which the remote copy is not performed and service to the remote copy is paused).
Regarding claim 22, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the remedial action comprises resuming service to the object store in response to receiving the request (Kodama Figure 2c, the split mode may be re-synced or reverse-synced which would result in resuming remote copy pair service).
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API and Cunliffe (US Patent 5740348).
Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 4. Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API does not expressly disclose the method further comprising: requesting, by the first storage system, mediation from a mediator, wherein servicing the object store in the presence of the fault proceeds only if mediation was successful.
Cunliffe teaches a replica database system in which an external mediator is provided such that, when a hardware failure occurs that prevents a quorum agreement among replicas, a mediator provides a deciding vote to determine which data is to be trusted and prevent a split brain problem (abstract and column 2 lines 10-17).
Prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the failover storage system disclosed by Kodama such that, when a replica storage fails, a vote is received from an external mediator in a host, as taught by Cunliffe. This modification would have been obvious because use of the mediator can prevent a split brain condition (Cunliffe column 2 lines 6-9).
Claims 6 and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API and Shah (US Patent 8966318).
Regarding claim 6, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1. Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API does not expressly disclose the method further comprising providing, through the API, a parameter indicating how long the first storage system has been unable to replicate updates to the second storage system.
Shah teaches a data duplication system in which a user can configure a number of restart attempts, a start timeout period for starting an application, and a heartbeat interval (column 14 lines 6-15).
Prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the storage system disclosed by Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API such that the system configuration allows a user to configure a heartbeat interval, as taught by Shah. This modification would have been obvious because, as would be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art, a user may be most aware of their particular recovery requirements.
Regarding claim 7, Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API discloses the method of claim 1. Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API does not expressly disclose the method further comprising providing, through the API, a parameter indicating how long until an automatic fault handling action is initiated by one or more of the plurality of storage systems.
Shah teaches a data duplication system in which a user can configure a number of restart attempts, a start timeout period for starting an application, and a heartbeat interval (column 14 lines 6-15).
Prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the storage system disclosed by Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API such that the system configuration allows a user to configure a heartbeat interval, as taught by Shah. This modification would have been obvious because, as would be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art, a user may be most aware of their particular recovery requirements.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API, Shah and Cunliffe.
Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API and Shah discloses the method of claim 7. Kodama in view of Wikipedia's API and Shah does not expressly disclose the method wherein the automatic fault handling action includes at least one of mediation and a quorum-based protocol.
Cunliffe teaches a replica database system in which an external mediator is provided such that, when a hardware failure occurs that prevents a quorum agreement among replicas, a mediator provides a deciding vote to determine which data is to be trusted and prevent a split brain problem (abstract and column 2 lines 10-17).
Prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the failover storage system disclosed by Kodama such that, when a replica storage fails, a vote is received from an external mediator in a host, as taught by Cunliffe. This modification would have been obvious because use of the mediator can prevent a split brain condition (Cunliffe column 2 lines 6-9).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Grunwald teaches use of a mediator service that is utilized in response to a fault among multiple storage devices. Goren teaches a replicated storage system in which a replication connection fails and both system continue to independently write data in parallel; upon communication recovery, each system may send changes since the last synchronized point to the other.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH SCHELL whose telephone number is (571) 272-8186. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday 9AM-5:00PM (Pacific Time).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ashish Thomas can be reached at (571) 272-0631. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. The fax phone number for the examiner is 571-273-8186. The examiner may be e-mailed at joseph.schell@uspto.gov though communications via e-mail are not permitted without a written authorization form (see MPEP 502.03).
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JS/JOSEPH O SCHELL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2114
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