DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are pending.
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 the 35 U.S.C. 103 rejections (Remarks pp. 6-8) have been fully considered but are moot in view of the Examiner’s new ground of rejections based on added references to address applicant’s amendments.
Claim Interpretation
Claim 1 recites “computer program product for facilitating processing within a computing environment, the computer program product comprising: one or more computer readable storage media and program instructions collectively stored on the one or more computer readable storage media”. The Examiner is reading the “computer readable storage media” as being non-transitory, because the specification states, “A computer readable storage medium, as that term is used in the present disclosure, is not to be construed as storage in the form of transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freely propagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagating through a waveguide, light pulses passing through a fiber optic cable, electrical signals communicated through a wire, and/or other transmission media.” (⁋ 0015) Therefore, the claimed “one or more computer readable storage media” is interpreted as being non-transitory in light of the specification (⁋ 0015).
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, 9-12, 14, 16-17, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stewart (US 20150289405 A1) in view of Chari (US 20040199696 A1), He (CN 108139924 A), and Okabayashi (US 20150296025 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, Stewart teaches a computer program product for facilitating processing within a computing environment, the computer program product comprising:
one or more computer readable storage media and program instructions collectively stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions collectively stored comprising (
Stewart discloses, “Embodiments disclosed herein can be implemented as one or more computer program products, i.e., one or more modules of computer program instructions encoded on a computer-readable medium for execution by, or to control the operation of, data processing apparatus. For example, the frame manager 168 may be provided in such computer-readable medium of the frame center 120, one of the FRUs 112, and/or the like, and executed by a processor or processing engine (not shown) of the FRU 112. As another example, the logic or software of the frame center 120 responsible for accessing the manager PROM image 148 and routing communications within the frame 100 may be provided in such computer-readable medium of the frame center 120 (e.g., memory 144) and executed by a processor or processing engine (not shown) of the frame center 120 (not shown). The computer-readable medium can be a machine-readable storage device, a machine-readable storage substrate, a non-volatile memory device, a composition of matter affecting a machine-readable propagated signal, or a combination of one or more of them,” ¶ 0226.):
program instructions to obtain, by a receiving network device, a request built to enable a control program to initiate a swap of one or more components of a network, request including an indication of the one or more components for which the swap is to be initiated (
Stewart discloses, “The present invention generally relates to the management of field replaceable units (FRUs) mounted within a frame structure such as a rack or cabinet and, more specifically, to systems and methods that bring the enhanced availability and serviceability of blade or chassis-based computing systems into rack-based computing systems,” ¶ 0003, and “In one arrangement, a user may, upon desiring to hot-swap the second FRU 172, depress or manipulate a button or other feature (e.g., button 182 in FIG. 4) on the back of the second frame arm 176 to cause the transmission of a hot-swap request to the service processor 160 of the frame center 120 via a respective I.sup.2C line 20 of the fixed interconnect topology 124 electrically connecting the second frame arm 176 to the frame center 120,” ¶ 0126.
The control program is mapped to the program located on the second frame arm 176 that causes a transmission of the hot-swap request to the frame center 120.
The claimed “receiving network device” is mapped to the disclosed “frame center 120”, which receives the hot-swap request, and then uses the service processor 160 to forward the request to other network devices.);
program instructions to initiate, by the receiving network device, the swap of the one or more components indicated by the request (
Stewart discloses, “For instance, in the event that a 2U FRU 112 installed at one or two frame arms 116 is replaced with a 4U FRU 112 installed at the same one or two frame arms 116…,” ¶ 0123, and “Upon receipt of the request, the service processor 160 may forward the request to (or otherwise alert) the frame manager 168 at the first FRU 152 via a respective network line 24 between the frame center 120 and the first frame arm 156 to perform a hot-swap operation of the second FRU 172,” ¶ 0126.
Here, the FRU (field replaceable unit) 172 is replaced in the hot-swap operation with a different FRU.).
Stewart does not teach that the control program is an operating system, the operating system executing on a computing device coupled to but separate from the receiving network device. Stewart also does not teach wherein the request is a command. Stewart also does not teach program instructions to provide, by the receiving network device, status resulting from the swap of the one or more components.
However, Chari teaches a control program executing on a computing device coupled to but separate from the receiving network device (
Chari discloses, “A computer software system is disclosed for facilitating a user's replacement or insertion of devices in a computer server network system. The system allows a user to swap or add peripheral devices while the system is running, or in a ‘hot’ condition, with little or no user knowledge of how the system carries out the ‘hot swap’ or ‘hot add’ functions. The system, which consists of a graphical user interface (GUI) and associated computer software modules, allows the user to select a desired peripheral device location within a server, and then provides the modular software structure to automatically execute a series of steps in the hot swap or hot add process. Each step is prompted by the user from the GUI, to invoke commands to instruct a network server through its operating system and hardware to suspend the appropriate device adapters, if necessary, power down the desired device slot or canister, allow the user to replace or insert a new device, and finally restart the adapters and the slot power,” Abstract.
Stewart already teaches using a button to initiate a hot-swap request. After the combination of Stewart with Chari, Stewart’s button is replaced with a control program comprising a graphical user interface to initiate the hot-swap request.),
and that a request is a command (
Chari discloses, “Each step is prompted by the user from the GUI, to invoke commands to instruct a network server through its operating system and hardware to suspend the appropriate device adapters, if necessary, power down the desired device slot or canister, allow the user to replace or insert a new device, and finally restart the adapters and the slot power,” Abstract.).
Stewart and Chari are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer architecture and hot-swaps. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Stewart to incorporate the teachings of Chari and provide a control program executing on a computing device coupled to but separate from the receiving network device, and also provide that a request is a command. Doing so would help simplify the initiation of a hot-swap request by allowing it to be done using the control program on the computing device (Chari discloses, “The system requires very little detailed input from the user other than identifying the particular peripheral device slot within the server to be maintained,” Abstract.).
Stewart in view of Chari does not teach that the control program is an operating system. Stewart in view of Chari also does not teach program instructions to provide, by the receiving network device, status resulting from the swap of the one or more components
However, He teaches program instructions to provide, by the receiving network device, status resulting from the swap of the one or more components (
He discloses, “In various embodiments, as shown in FIG. 1 and/or FIG. 2 describes the implementation of the network device can be a chassis-based system. In these embodiments, management module, line card and switching fabric module may each be ‘hot swap’ or ‘hot switching’, which means that these components can be a network device is in operation is inserted into the network device or from the network device. The term ‘hot swap’ can refers to assembly into physical insertion or removal in the machine case,” Page 9, and “In this example, the lower two bytes containing command 1210, which may be a write-only register. command 1210 can be used by the virtual machine to send a hot-swap command. after command register of this example is two bytes read state 1212. state 1212 for returning to a previous command value. zero or positive in state 1212 can indicate success of the previous command is completed. a negative value can indicate an error or command failure,” Page 21.).
Stewart in view of Chari, and He are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer architecture and hot-swaps. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Stewart in view of Chari to incorporate the teachings of He and provide program instructions to provide, by the receiving network device, status resulting from the swap of the one or more components. Doing so would allow for increased interpretability of the results of the commands, in order for remedial actions to be performed more quickly in response to an error (He discloses, “using the virtual machine runs a network operating system can makes the network device more flexible and robust. For example, if the virtual machine crash, can quickly start other virtual machine, and only a small amount of the stopping time of the operation of the network device can be restored. if the network operating system as the host operating system local operation of network device, and the network operating system crash, then must restart the network device, thereby causing longer stopping time and the interruption of the packet flow,” Page 4).
Stewart in view of Chari and He does not teach that the control program is an operating system.
However, Okabayashi teaches that the control program is an operating system (
Okabayashi discloses, “The CPU 51 realizes the processes in output control, by controlling the processes of the entire computer such as various calculations and input and output of data among the hardware elements, based on control programs such as the Operating System (OS) and execution programs stored in the main memory 50,” ¶ 0082.
After the combination of Stewart in view of Chari and He, with Okabayashi, the control program from Stewart in view of Chari and He is now an operating system as specified by Okabayashi.).
Stewart in view of Chari and He, and Okabayashi are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer architecture. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Stewart in view of Chari and He to incorporate the teachings of Okabayashi and provide that the control program is an operating system. Doing so would allow for greater control over the processes using the operating system (Okabayashi discloses, “The CPU 51 realizes the processes in output control, by controlling the processes of the entire computer such as various calculations and input and output of data among the hardware elements, based on control programs such as the Operating System (OS) and execution programs stored in the main memory 50,” ¶ 0082.).
Claims 11 and 16 are a computer system claim (¶ 0226 of Stewart.) and computer-implemented method, respectively, corresponding to the computer program product Claim 1. Therefore, Claims 11 and 16 are rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 2, Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi teaches the computer program product of claim 1, wherein the command further includes an indication of one or more destination components to be swapped in for the one or more components (
Stewart discloses, “When the location record 304 of a particular worker PROM image 140 includes one or more non-physical location IDs 312, the location record 304 may also include a subordinate location ID list 316 that maps or otherwise links the non-physical location IDs 312 (i.e., IDs that identify the FRUs 112″ relative to the frame 100) to local device numbers 320 (i.e., IDs that identify the FRUs 112″ relative to the FRU 112′) and which may be used by the FRU 112′ to configure the FRUs 112″ in a manner free of having to wait for communication with the service processor 160 and/or frame manager 168,” ¶ 0114, and “Upon receipt of the request, the service processor 160 may forward the request to (or otherwise alert) the frame manager 168 at the first FRU 152 via a respective network line 24 between the frame center 120 and the first frame arm 156 to perform a hot-swap operation of the second FRU 172,” ¶ 0126.
The FRUs are accessed via their respective IDs. Thus, after the combination of Stewart in view of Chari, with He, the hot-swap operation includes the ID as an indication of the destination FRU to be swapped.).
Regarding Claim 5, Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi teaches the computer program product of claim 1, wherein the program instructions to initiate the swap of the one or more components includes program instructions to forward at least an indication of the command to one or more network devices coupled to the receiving network device to initiate the swap of at least one component of the one or more components (
Stewart discloses, “Upon receipt of the request, the service processor 160 may forward the request to (or otherwise alert) the frame manager 168 at the first FRU 152 via a respective network line 24 between the frame center 120 and the first frame arm 156 to perform a hot-swap operation of the second FRU 172,” ¶ 0126.
The claimed “one or more network devices coupled to the receiving network device” is mapped to the “FRU 152” that is connected to the frame center 120 via a “respective network line 24”.
After the combination of Stewart with Chari, the request from Stewart is now a command as specified by Chari.).
Claims 14 and 19 are a computer system claim (¶ 0002 of Stewart.) and computer-implemented method, respectively, corresponding to the computer program product Claim 5. Therefore, Claims 14 and 19 are rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 5.
Regarding Claim 9, Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi teaches the computer program product of claim 1, wherein the command is populated using the operating system (
Chari discloses, “Each step is prompted by the user from the GUI, to invoke commands to instruct a network server through its operating system and hardware,” Abstract.
Here, commands are sent to a network server from a GUI, which is part of an operating system.).
and includes the indication of the one or more components for which the swap is to be initiated as determined using the operating system (
Chari discloses, “The system, which consists of a graphical user interface (GUI) and associated computer software modules, allows the user to select a desired peripheral device location within a server, and then provides the modular software structure to automatically execute a series of steps in the hot swap or hot add process. Each step is prompted by the user from the GUI, to invoke commands to instruct a network server through its operating system and hardware to suspend the appropriate device adapters, if necessary, power down the desired device slot or canister, allow the user to replace or insert a new device, and finally restart the adapters and the slot power,” Abstract.).
Stewart and Chari are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer architecture. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have Stewart to incorporate the teachings of Chari and provide wherein the command is populated using the operating system and includes the indication of the one or more components for which the swap is to be initiated as determined using the operating system. Doing so would help ensure that the correct components are selected for the swap.
Regarding Claim 10, Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi teaches the computer program product of claim 1, wherein the status includes an indication of whether the swap was successful, and based on the swap being unsuccessful, the status includes one or more error indications (
He discloses, “In this example, the lower two bytes containing command 1210, which may be a write-only register. command 1210 can be used by the virtual machine to send a hot-swap command. after command register of this example is two bytes read state 1212. state 1212 for returning to a previous command value. zero or positive in state 1212 can indicate success of the previous command is completed. a negative value can indicate an error or command failure,” Page 21.).
Stewart in view of Chari, and He are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer architecture and hot-swaps. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Stewart in view of Chari to incorporate the teachings of He and provide wherein the status includes an indication of whether the swap was successful, and based on the swap being unsuccessful, the status includes one or more error indications. Doing so would allow for increased interpretability of the results of the commands, in order for remedial actions to be performed more quickly in response to an error (He discloses, “using the virtual machine runs a network operating system can makes the network device more flexible and robust. For example, if the virtual machine crash, can quickly start other virtual machine, and only a small amount of the stopping time of the operation of the network device can be restored. if the network operating system as the host operating system local operation of network device, and the network operating system crash, then must restart the network device, thereby causing longer stopping time and the interruption of the packet flow,” Page 4).
Regarding Claim 12, Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi teaches the computer system of claim 11, wherein the command further includes an indication of one or more destination components to be swapped in for the one or more components (
Stewart discloses, “When the location record 304 of a particular worker PROM image 140 includes one or more non-physical location IDs 312, the location record 304 may also include a subordinate location ID list 316 that maps or otherwise links the non-physical location IDs 312 (i.e., IDs that identify the FRUs 112″ relative to the frame 100) to local device numbers 320 (i.e., IDs that identify the FRUs 112″ relative to the FRU 112′) and which may be used by the FRU 112′ to configure the FRUs 112″ in a manner free of having to wait for communication with the service processor 160 and/or frame manager 168,” ¶ 0114, and “Upon receipt of the request, the service processor 160 may forward the request to (or otherwise alert) the frame manager 168 at the first FRU 152 via a respective network line 24 between the frame center 120 and the first frame arm 156 to perform a hot-swap operation of the second FRU 172,” ¶ 0126.
The FRUs are accessed via their respective IDs. Thus, after the combination of Stewart in view of Chari, with He, the hot-swap operation includes the ID as an indication of the destination FRU to be swapped.).
Stewart does not teach wherein the command is populated using the operating system and includes the indication of the one or more components for which the swap is to be initiated as determined using the operating system.
However, Chari teaches wherein the command is populated using the operating system (
Chari discloses, “Each step is prompted by the user from the GUI, to invoke commands to instruct a network server through its operating system and hardware,” Abstract.
Here, commands are sent to a network server from a GUI, which is part of an operating system.).
and includes the indication of the one or more components for which the swap is to be initiated as determined using the operating system (
Chari discloses, “The system, which consists of a graphical user interface (GUI) and associated computer software modules, allows the user to select a desired peripheral device location within a server, and then provides the modular software structure to automatically execute a series of steps in the hot swap or hot add process. Each step is prompted by the user from the GUI, to invoke commands to instruct a network server through its operating system and hardware to suspend the appropriate device adapters, if necessary, power down the desired device slot or canister, allow the user to replace or insert a new device, and finally restart the adapters and the slot power,” Abstract.).
Stewart and Chari are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer architecture. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have Stewart to incorporate the teachings of Chari and provide wherein the command is populated using the operating system and includes the indication of the one or more components for which the swap is to be initiated as determined using the operating system. Doing so would help ensure that the correct components are selected for the swap.
Claim 17 is a computer-implemented method claim corresponding to the computer system Claim 12. Therefore, Claim 17 is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 12.
Claims 3-4, 13, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stewart (US 20150289405 A1) in view of Chari (US 20040199696 A1), He (CN 108139924 A), Okabayashi (US 20150296025 A1), and Du (US 20140032641 A1).
Regarding Claim 3, Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi teaches the computer program product of claim 1. Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi does not teach wherein the command further includes an indication of at least one type of component of one or more types of components to be swapped.
However, Du teaches wherein the command further includes an indication of at least one type of component of one or more types of components to be swapped (
Du discloses, “Further, the computer system 150 may contain multiple and interconnecting BMC 170s configured to monitor and control different subsystems such as redundant power supplies, hot-swap Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) system, expansion I/O, and others,” ¶ 0018, and “In one embodiment, the hardware management system 100, the computer system 150, and the virtual IPMI server 180 communicate with one another using IPMI messages… An IPMI request generally refers to an IPMI message that is intended for the BMC 170 to process and may be associated with one or more hardware components, or one or more IPMI message types… The IPMI request 131 or the IPMI request 141 may be a request for information, such as status information, of one or more hardware components of the computer system 150 from the BMC 170. The IPMI request 131 or the IPMI request 141 may contain a network function field, a command field, and an optional data field. The command field of the IPMI request 131 or the IPMI request 141 may contain additional information, such as a device ID, manufacturer ID…,” ¶ 0019.
After the combination of Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi, with Du, the command structure from Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi now includes the manufacture ID from Du, which indicates the type of component to be swapped.).
Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi, and Du are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer architecture. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi to incorporate the teachings of Du and provide wherein the command structure further includes a swap command type indicating one or more types of components to be swapped. Doing so would help provide more information to the system about the types of devices that are connected, and whether there is support for them (Du discloses, “The command field of the IPMI request 131 or the IPMI request 141 may contain additional information, such as a device ID, manufacturer ID, product ID, firmware revision, and/or additional device support information for identifying the hardware component(s) that the IPMI request 131 or the IPMI request 141 is inquiring about,” ¶ 0019.).
Claims 13 and 18 are a computer system claim (¶ 0002 of Stewart.) and computer-implemented method, respectively, corresponding to the computer program product Claim 3. Therefore, Claims 13 and 18 are rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 3.
Regarding Claim 4, Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi, and Du teaches the computer program product of claim 3, wherein the one or more types of components include ports and blades (
Stewart discloses, “Turning now to FIG. 1, a schematic side view of a computing frame or system 100 is disclosed that allows rack-type FRUs (e.g., rack-mount servers, backup power modules, and the like) to be managed in a manner similar to that in which blade-type servers are managed within a blade enclosure or chassis, but in a manner that is largely free of many of the inherent limitations of blade-type systems. The frame 100 may be secured to or otherwise implemented within any appropriate rack or cabinet 104 having a plurality of bays or receiving locations (not shown in FIG. 1) sized to receive a respective plurality of FRUs 112 of one or more types and/or form factors such as rack-mount servers, blade enclosures (each holding one or more blade servers), and/or other electronic devices in a stacked or overlapping fashion,” ¶ 0068.).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stewart (US 20150289405 A1) in view of Chari (US 20040199696 A1), He (CN 108139924 A), Okabayashi (US 20150296025 A1), and Yuan (US 20230214231 A1).
Regarding Claim 6, Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi teaches the computer program product of claim 1. Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi does not teach wherein the command is a control unit port command constructed based on a defined format, the defined format including a command code, a command indication and a description of the command.
However, Yuan teaches wherein the command is a control unit port command constructed based on a defined format, the defined format including a command code, a command indication and a description of the command (
Yuan discloses, “In the Table, ‘Code value’ represents code values matching different types of code, ‘Code name’ represents a code name, ‘Arguments’ represents arguments, and ‘Description’ is a supplementary description of the code. It may be understood that different types of code have different information such as code names and code values,” ¶ 0121.
The “code name” is an indication of a code/command because it is used to briefly describe the code/command name without having to use the amount of detail required in the description field of the code/command. This is in line with paragraph 52 of the present application’s specification, which states “a command field 504, which indicates the command, such as a control unit port command (and may or may not specify what action the command is performing)”.).
Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi, and Yuan are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of software architecture. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi to incorporate the teachings of Yuan and provide wherein the command is a control unit port command constructed based on a defined format, the defined format including a command code, a command indication and a description of the command. Doing so would allow for consistent representations of the commands for ease-of-use (Yuan discloses, “In the Table, ‘Code value’ represents code values matching different types of code, ‘Code name’ represents a code name, ‘Arguments’ represents arguments, and ‘Description’ is a supplementary description of the code,” ¶ 0121.).
Claims 7, 15, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stewart (US 20150289405 A1) in view of Chari (US 20040199696 A1), He (CN 108139924 A), Okabayashi (US 20150296025 A1), and Atta (US 10203967 B1).
Regarding Claim 7, Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi teaches the computer program product of claim 1. Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi does not teach wherein the command uses a command structure built to be used with the command, the command structure provided to the receiving network device and including one or more identifiers of the one or more components to be swapped and one or more identifiers of one or more destination components to be swapped in for the one or more components.
However, Atta teaches wherein the command uses a command structure built to be used with the command, the command structure provided to the receiving network device and including one or more identifiers of the one or more components to be swapped and one or more identifiers of one or more destination components to be swapped in for the one or more components (
Atta discloses, “The request 460 can include a reference to the source and/or destination instance, a reference to the configuration data to download (e.g., an instance type, a marketplace identifier, a machine image identifier, or a configurable hardware identifier), a user identifier, an authorization token, and/or other information for identifying the configuration data to download and/or authorizing access to the configuration data,” Col 15, Lines 45-52.
The claimed “command structure” is mapped to the structure of the request.
After the combination of Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi, with Atta, the request from Atta is now a command as specified by Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi, where the source and destination instances from Atta, stored in the structure of the request, are used to refer to the components that are being swapped.).
Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi, and Atta are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer architecture. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Stewart in view of Chari, He, and Okabayashi to incorporate the teachings of Atta and provide wherein the command uses a command structure built to be used with the command, the command structure provided to the receiving network device and including one or more identifiers of the one or more components to be swapped and one or more identifiers of one or more destination components to be swapped in for the one or more components. Doing so would allow for validating each of the components based on their identifiers. (Atta discloses, “The validated configuration data 462 can be used to configure the configurable logic of the destination instance,” Col 15, Lines 57-59.).
Claims 15 and 20 are a computer system claim (¶ 0002 of Stewart.) and computer-implemented method, respectively, corresponding to the computer program product Claim 7. Therefore, Claims 15 and 20 are rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 7.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Stewart (US 20150289405 A1) in view of Chari (US 20040199696 A1), He (CN 108139924 A), Okabayashi (US 20150296025 A1), Atta (US 10203967 B1), and Du (US 20140032641 A1).
Regarding Claim 8, Stewart in view of Chari, He, Okabayashi, and Atta teaches the computer program product of claim 7. Stewart in view of Chari, He, Okabayashi, and Atta does not teach wherein the command structure further includes a swap command type indicating one or more types of components to be swapped.
However, Du teaches wherein the command structure further includes a swap command type indicating one or more types of components to be swapped (
Du discloses, “Further, the computer system 150 may contain multiple and interconnecting BMC 170s configured to monitor and control different subsystems such as redundant power supplies, hot-swap Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) system, expansion I/O, and others,” ¶ 0018, and “In one embodiment, the hardware management system 100, the computer system 150, and the virtual IPMI server 180 communicate with one another using IPMI messages… An IPMI request generally refers to an IPMI message that is intended for the BMC 170 to process and may be associated with one or more hardware components, or one or more IPMI message types… The IPMI request 131 or the IPMI request 141 may be a request for information, such as status information, of one or more hardware components of the computer system 150 from the BMC 170. The IPMI request 131 or the IPMI request 141 may contain a network function field, a command field, and an optional data field. The command field of the IPMI request 131 or the IPMI request 141 may contain additional information, such as a device ID, manufacturer ID…,” ¶ 0019.
After the combination of Stewart in view of Chari, He, Okabayashi, and Atta, with Du, the command structure from Stewart in view of Chari, He, Okabayashi, and Atta now includes the manufacture ID from Du, which indicates the type of component to be swapped.).
Stewart in view of Chari, He, Okabayashi, and Atta, and Du are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of computer architecture. Therefore, it would have been obvious to someone of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Stewart in view of Chari, He, Okabayashi, and Atta to incorporate the teachings of Du and provide wherein the command structure further includes a swap command type indicating one or more types of components to be swapped. Doing so would help provide more information to the system about the types of devices that are connected, and whether there is support for them (Du discloses, “The command field of the IPMI request 131 or the IPMI request 141 may contain additional information, such as a device ID, manufacturer ID, product ID, firmware revision, and/or additional device support information for identifying the hardware component(s) that the IPMI request 131 or the IPMI request 141 is inquiring about,” ¶ 0019.).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Mahalingam (US 6223234 B1): Apparatus For The Hot Swap And Add Of Input/output Platforms And Devices
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDREW SUN whose telephone number is (571)272-6735. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00-5:00.
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/ANDREW NMN SUN/Examiner, Art Unit 2195
/Aimee Li/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2195