DETAILED ACTION
Claim 1-20 are pending in this application.
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 .
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, 6, 11, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Pub. No. 20220/179695 A1 to Dawkins et al. in view of U.S. Pub. No. 20120304191 A1 to Morgan.
As to claim 1, Dawkins teaches a method for managing computer implemented services provided by a managed system (External Resources 30/Hardware Resources 110/118), the method comprising:
enabling, by a local subscription manager (Composition Manager 300), use of a hardware bundle by a user to service a subscription ((i) obtaining composition requests for composed information handling systems from, for example, the clients (40), (ii) aggregating computing resources from the information handling systems (60) and/or external resources (30) using system control processors to service the composition requests) (“…In one or more embodiments of the invention, the system includes a system control processor manager (50). The system control processor manager (50) may provide composed information handling system composition services. Composed information handling system composition services may include (i) obtaining composition requests for composed information handling systems from, for example, the clients (40), (ii) aggregating computing resources from the information handling systems (60) and/or external resources (30) using system control processors to service the composition requests by instantiating composed information handling systems in accordance with the requests, and (iii) modifying existing resource allocations for composed information handling systems. By doing so, instantiated composed information handling systems may provide computer implemented services in accordance with the expectations of the clients…To obtain information regarding the hardware components of the information handling system, the composition manager (300) may inventory the components of the information handling system hosting the system control processor. The inventory may include, for example, the type and model of each hardware component, versions of firmware or other code executing on the hardware components, and/or information regarding hardware components of the information handling system that may be allocated to form composed information handling systems…The composition manager (300) may obtain composition requests from other entities (e.g., management entities tasked with instantiating composed information handling systems), as pre-loaded instructions present in storage of the system control processor, and/or via other methods. The composition requests may specify, for example, the types and quantities of computing resources to be allocated to a composed information handling system…” paragraphs 0036/0096-0098);
deploying a first performance monitor (performance of workloads/utilization monitors/Step 512) to a directly manageable hardware component of the hardware bundle to obtain first workload monitoring data (“…To determine the utilization of the computing resources of the information handling systems (60), performance of workloads, or other indicators regarding the quality of computer implemented services provided by composed information handling systems, the system control processor manager (50) may instruct system control processors of the composed information handling systems to monitor the use of hardware resources by the clients (40). This information may be used, for example, to ascertain whether additional or fewer resources should be allocated to the composed information handling systems, to identify whether new composed information handling systems should be instantiated, and/or for other purposes…For example, utilization monitors may be deployed in control resource sets to monitor the use of the other resource sets. Accordingly, use of these computing resources for providing computer implemented services requested by the clients (40) may be uniformly monitored across the information handling systems (60). For additional details regarding the system control processor manager (50), refer to FIG. 4…In step 512, a utilization monitor that monitors utilization of the at least one compute resource set and the at least one hardware resource set is instantiated…” paragraphs 0040/0043/0213/0214);
deploying a second performance monitor (For example, clients (40) may utilize Service Level Agreements (SLAs) or other types of quantification metrics/Composition Manager 300) to a hardware resources that is used to service the subscription to obtain second workload monitoring data (“…To determine whether to modify resource allocations, the system control processor manager (50) may monitor, for example, the workloads being performed by composed information handling systems, the utilization of computing resources allocated to the composed information handling systems, and/or other characteristics of the composed systems that may indicate whether the composed information handling systems are able to provide computer implemented services that meet the expectations of the clients (40). For example, clients (40) may utilize Service Level Agreements (SLAs) or other types of quantification metrics for ascertaining whether services that have been requested to be provided meet those promised to be provided… The composition manager (300) may obtain composition requests from other entities (e.g., management entities tasked with instantiating composed information handling systems), as pre-loaded instructions present in storage of the system control processor, and/or via other methods. The composition requests may specify, for example, the types and quantities of computing resources to be allocated to a composed information handling system…” paragraphs 0037/0038/0098/0098);
using the second workload monitoring data to isolate workloads related to the subscription in the first workload monitoring data (Step 604);
identifying, based on the isolated workloads, that a subscription limit of the subscription has been reached (Step 604); and
after a limit of the subscription is reached: limiting use of the hardware bundle by the user (Steps 702/706) (“…In step 602, the operation of the deployment is monitored to obtain operation information. The operation information may include any type and quantity of information usable to ascertain whether the computer implemented services provided by the deployment meets client expectations…The operation information may be obtained from utilization monitors hosted by system control processors of the composed information handling systems of the deployment. For example, the utilization monitors may monitor workloads being performed by the composed information handling systems and report, to a system control processor manager, the workload performance. The performance of any number of composed information handling systems may be obtained when monitoring the operation of the deployment…In step 604, it is determined, based on the operation information, whether the computer implemented services provided by the deployment are substandard. The determination may be made by comparing the operation information obtained in step 602 to client expectations for the computer implemented services…For example, the comparison may indicate a variance (e.g., better than expected or worse than expected rather than as expected) between the computer implemented services provided by the deployment and those expected by the client. If a variance exists that exceeds a predetermined amount, then it may be determined that the computer implemented services are substandard. In some embodiments of the invention, the services may only be determined as being substandard if the services are worse than expected by the client…In step 702, it is determined whether the workload performance meets the requirements of a service level agreement. The determination may be made by comparing the characteristics of the workload performance (e.g., response time, completion duration, etc.) to corresponding characteristics specified by the service level agreement…If the workload performance does not meet the service level agreement, then the method may proceed to step 704. If the workload performance does meet the service level agreement, then the method may end following step 702..” paragraphs 022502280238/0239/0244).
Dawkins does not explicitly teaches after a limit of the subscription is reached: limiting, by the local subscription manager, use of the hardware bundle by the user using only the directly manageable hardware component.
Morgan teaches after a limit of the subscription is reached (capture and track that consumption compared to the short-term limits, levels, thresholds, ceilings, or caps that may be contained in the set of subscription parameters 146 for that user/Deviation/Over-Subscription Conditions 226): limiting, by the local subscription manager (Entitlement Engine 140), use of the hardware bundle by the user using only the directly manageable hardware component (Set Of Selection Criteria 220) (“…According to aspects, the entitlement engine 140 can thereby identify comparatively short-term resource consumption by the virtual machines or other entities, sites or nodes operated by the set of users 190, and capture and track that consumption compared to the short-term limits, levels, thresholds, ceilings, or caps that may be contained in the set of subscription parameters 146 for that user. The entitlement engine 140 can therefore generate or determine a short-term consumption margin for each resource which the set of users 190 consume and/or subscribe to in each cloud in the set of host clouds 142, indicating whether over the course of an hour or other period the consumption rates or values are over the subscription limit for a given resource, under the subscription limit, or at or nearly at the subscription limit for that resource…Both the over and under-consumption margins for each resource can be captured and calculated, from which the entitlement engine 140 can generate a set of short-term user-aggregated margins 178 representing the collective short-term consumption of that resource across the diverse host clouds in set of host clouds 142, resulting in an offset or aggregate consumption value. Deviations from short-term consumption caps, limits, service level agreements (SLAs), and/or other criteria can therefore be combined, averaged, aggregated, and/or otherwise "smoothed out" to more accurately and/or timely reflect the consumption patterns of the set of users 190, as a whole on an aggregate basis. In aspects, the resource provider 156, the cloud operators or providers of the set of host clouds 142, and/or other entities can thereby charge, bill, or otherwise adjust the subscription costs or other factors encoded in the billing record 150 sent to the set of users 190, for instance via an administrator or other users, so that their subscription obligations more closely track the actual consumption behavior demonstrated by the set of users 190. In aspects, the set of short-term user-aggregated margins 178 can for instance be used to establish short-term marginal subscription costs based on short-term deviations from any subscription consumption limits, which costs can then be combined over different time periods to further average or aggregate the deviations in resource consumption. In aspects, the detection of bursts and relaxations in resource consumption over relatively short-term periods can thereby allow both positive and negative offsets or margins in subscription costs, creating a more accurate assignment of subscription rates. In embodiments as shown, the over-consumption of one or more resources and/or related events can be reflected in a set of over-subscription conditions 226, which can include records indicating the degree by which various resources (processor, memory, storage, operating system, application, etc.) exceeds any subscription caps or levels in a given interval of time…In implementations as shown, after the various resource consumption rates, levels, and/or other subscription-related information is gathered in the one or more over-subscription conditions 226, the deployment engine 222 and/or other application, logic, and/or service can analyze that data using a set of selection criteria 220 to determine whether to alleviate the over-consumption of resources by deploying the user's workload 228 and/or the over-subscribed resources and/or other portions thereof to the set of federated backup clouds 218, to the one or more replacement clouds 214, to combinations thereof, and/or to other cloud support networks In aspects, the set of selection criteria 220 can comprise a variety of functions, thresholds, limits, variables, calculations, and/or other criteria that can be used to identify a preferred, acceptable, optimal, and/or other choice for the deployment of the workload 228 operating under the one or more over-subscription conditions 226…” paragraphs 0037/0038/0041/0042).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to modify the system of Dawkins with the teaching of Morgan because the teaching of Morgan would improve the system of Dawkins by providing a technique for selective workload migration or federation based on workload conditions.
As to claim 6, Dawkins teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the managed system comprises the hardware bundle (Hardware Resource Set 110/118) and the local subscription manager (Composition Manager 300).
As to claim 11, see the rejection of claim 1 above, except for a non-transitory machine-readable medium, processor, and indirectly manageable hardware components.
Dawkins teaches a non-transitory machine-readable medium (Persistent Storage 1106) and processor (Processor(s) 1102).
As to claim 16, see the rejection of claim 6 above.
Claims 7, 8, 17 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Pub. No. 2022/0179695 A1 to Dawkins et al. in view of U.S. Pub. No. 20120304191 A1 to Morgan as applied to claims 6 and 16 above, and further in view of U.S. Pub. No. 2022/0300339 A1 to Iyer et al.
As to claim 7, Dawkins as modified by Morgan teaches the method of claim 6, however it is silent with reference to wherein enabling the use of the hardware bundle comprises sending a sideband communication to the directly manageable hardware component.
Iyer teaches wherein enabling the use of the hardware bundle comprises sending a sideband communication (sideband bus interface) to the directly manageable hardware component (managed devices 101, 120, 125, 130, 135 of an HIS) (“…In some embodiments, remote access controller 155 may support monitoring and administration of various managed devices 101, 120, 125, 130, 135 of an IHS via a sideband bus interface. For instance, messages utilized in device management may be transmitted using I2C sideband bus connections 185a-e that may be individually established with each of the respective managed devices 101, 120, 125, 130, 135 through the operation of an 120 multiplexer 155a of the remote access controller. As illustrated, managed devices 125, 130, 135 of IHS 100 are coupled to the IHS processor(s) 101 via one or more in-band buses supported by chipset 103, where these in-band busses are separate from the I2C sideband bus connections 185b-d used for device management. Accordingly, managed devices 125, 130 and 135 communicate with the operating system of IHS 100 via in-band buses supported by chipset 103, while the sideband buses 185b-d are used by these managed devices exclusively for communications with remote access controller 155…” paragraph 0030).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to modify the system of Dawkins and Morgan with the teaching of Iyer because the teaching of Iyer would improve the system of Dawkins and Morgan by providing a band of frequencies higher than or lower than the carrier frequency, that are the result of modulation process.
As to claim 8, Dawkins teaches the method of claim 7, wherein the local subscription manager comprises an independently operating computing device hosted by the managed system (Composition Manager 300).
As to claims 17 and 18, see the rejection of claims 7 and 8 respectively.
Claims 9 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Pub. No. 20220/179695 A1 to Dawkins et al. in view of U.S. Pub. No. 20120304191 A1 to Morgan as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of U.S. Pub. No. 20140181844 A1 to Von Bokern et al.
As to claim 9, Dawkins as modified by Morgan teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the directly manageable hardware component (Hardware Resource Set 110/118) is manageable by the local subscription manager (Composition Manager 300).
Von Bokern teaches wherein an indirectly manageable hardware component of the hardware bundle is unmanageable by the local subscription manager (Unmanaged devices) (“…Detecting, identifying, tracking, and managing assets in computing systems has traditionally been a significant challenge facing system administrators, particularly as it relates to security of the system. A single unknown, poorly understood, or poorly monitored device connected to a network can potentially expose the entire system to a variety of security threats and vulnerabilities, including malware, unauthorized data access, rogue users, etc. In some instances, agents can be installed on system devices to assist administrators in obtaining a view of the attributes of the system device, easily detect and communicate with the device on the network, and enforce particular security policies on the system device. Unmanaged devices (i.e., devices that do not possess an installed agent), however, may remain outside the communication, control, and monitoring of management systems designed to enable inter-device communication and operation, detect devices as they enter and leave the network, apply policies to various devices, and enforce security on the network. Indeed, installing agents on some devices can be difficult, with the provisioning of agents jeopardized by the very dearth of information concerning the unmanaged device. Further, unmanaged devices, in some instances, rather than being able to integrate into a network and be a benefit to the user or the network at large, may be sent to a quarantined or managed sub-network until the unmanaged device can be more carefully inspected by administrators, have an agent installed, better understood, etc. Additionally, the universe of potentially unmanaged devices continues to increase as more and more devices become "smart," in that they are increasingly controlled by computing processors, include network communication adapters, and are able to communicate with other systems…” paragraph 0019).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to modify the system of Dawkins and Morgan with the teaching of Von Bokern because the teaching of Von Bokern would improve the system of Dawkins and Morgan by providing unmanaged devices that are not reachable by the management system until it is needed.
As to claim 19, see the rejection of claim 1 above, except for indirectly manageable hardware components.
Von Bokern teaches indirectly manageable hardware components (Unmanaged devices) (“…Detecting, identifying, tracking, and managing assets in computing systems has traditionally been a significant challenge facing system administrators, particularly as it relates to security of the system. A single unknown, poorly understood, or poorly monitored device connected to a network can potentially expose the entire system to a variety of security threats and vulnerabilities, including malware, unauthorized data access, rogue users, etc. In some instances, agents can be installed on system devices to assist administrators in obtaining a view of the attributes of the system device, easily detect and communicate with the device on the network, and enforce particular security policies on the system device. Unmanaged devices (i.e., devices that do not possess an installed agent), however, may remain outside the communication, control, and monitoring of management systems designed to enable inter-device communication and operation, detect devices as they enter and leave the network, apply policies to various devices, and enforce security on the network. Indeed, installing agents on some devices can be difficult, with the provisioning of agents jeopardized by the very dearth of information concerning the unmanaged device. Further, unmanaged devices, in some instances, rather than being able to integrate into a network and be a benefit to the user or the network at large, may be sent to a quarantined or managed sub-network until the unmanaged device can be more carefully inspected by administrators, have an agent installed, better understood, etc. Additionally, the universe of potentially unmanaged devices continues to increase as more and more devices become "smart," in that they are increasingly controlled by computing processors, include network communication adapters, and are able to communicate with other systems…” paragraph 0019).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to modify the system of Dawkins and Morgan with the teaching of Von Bokern because the teaching of Von Bokern would improve the system of Dawkins and Morgan by providing unmanaged devices that are not reachable by the management system until it is needed.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-5, 10, 12-15 and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Reasons for Allowance
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The closest prior art of records, (U.S. Pub. No. 20220/179695 A1 to Dawkins et al. and U.S. Pub. No. 20120304191 A1 to Morgan), taken alone or in combination do not specifically disclose or suggest the claimed recitations (claims 2-5, 10, 12-15 and 20), when taken in the context of claims as a whole.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Pub. No. 2022/0179707 to Jrej et al. and directed to a system for providing computer implemented services using information handling systems includes a composed information handling system.
U.S. Pub. No. 2024/0004711 A1 to Young, Jr. et al. and directed to methods and systems for a resource allocation system.
W.O. No. 2020000175 A1 to Zhang et al. and directed to a system and method for providing oversubscribable resource allocation.
W.O. No. 2018102456 A1 to Reddy and directed to technologies for monitoring node cluster health include a plurality of managed nodes of a node cluster communicatively coupled across a data network to a resource manager server.
U.S. Pub. No. 2018/0285009 A1 to Guim et al. and directed to a dynamically composable computing system comprising a computing fabric with a plurality of different disaggregated computing hardware resources having respective hardware characteristics.
U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0354411 to Raikov et al. and directed to event broker apparatus including a subscription manager to manage subscriptions to event topics associated with provisioning of a virtual computing resource.
U.S. Pat. No. 11,249,790 B1 issued to Gupta et al. and directed to the present application relate to an instance resource oversubscription service for scheduling a burst period for a running virtual machine instance based on a time window specified by a user of the virtual machine instance.
U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0004601 A1 to Ahmad et al. and directed to a cloud oversubscription system that analyzes overloading of hosted virtual machines on an individual basis to detect a probability of overload of a host.
U.S. Pub. No. 2014/0032738 A1 to Chahal et al. and directed to techniques and mechanisms for determining that subscription headroom is available for a storage pool.
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/CHARLES E ANYA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2194