DETAILED ACTION
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
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al 20160117119 herein Kim in view of Iiada et all 20150026402 herein Iiada.
Claim 1-3, 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al 20160117119 herein Kim, Iiada et all 20150026402 herein Iiada in further view Lee et al. 20080222311 herein Lee.
Per claim 1, Kim discloses: a host having a buffer area; and a storage device having: a host interface; a controller; non-volatile storage media; and firmware; (fig. 1, 2 and 16 ¶0066 and ¶0155).
Kim discloses a system that uses weighted metric in view of the I/O to select queues but does not specifically disclose: and wherein the host configures, in the buffer area and according to a predetermined performance tier of an account, submission queues of requests from the account to access the non-volatile storage media; wherein the host configures no more than a predetermined count of submission queues for accessing the non-volatile storage media of the storage device concurrently.
However, Iiada in an analogous art discloses: and wherein the host configures, in the buffer area and according to a predetermined performance tier of an account, submission queues of requests from the account to access the non-volatile storage media (¶0008; data I/O request is received from the host, the control unit assigns storage areas in page units from the uppermost storage tier to the target areas of the virtual volume corresponding to the I/O request, and wherein the control unit changes the page unit storage area assignment to predetermined areas of the virtual volume from an upper storage tier to a lower storage tier in accordance with the speed of processing of the data I/O request from the host) wherein a number of the submission queues being configured is according to the predetermined performance tier of the account (¶0071-0072; Data I/O requests (write requests and read requests) to the virtual volumes VVOL from the hosts 100 are made by designating the LUN of the virtual volumes from/to which data is read and written, and the LBA and the data lengths of the leading logical blocks of the areas from/to which data in the virtual volumes VVOL is read and written.
Any one of the virtual volume pools VVP is pre-associated with each of the virtual volumes VVOL. Further, upon receiving a request to write data to the virtual volumes VVOL from the hosts 100, the storage apparatus 300 assigns storage areas of the required amount in units of a predetermined size called pages from the virtual volume pool VVP associated with the virtual volume VVOL to the area designated in the write request in the virtual volume VVOL designated in the write request and writes write target data to the assigned pages; ¶0075; the storage apparatus 300 monitors the frequency of access by the hosts 100 per unit time to each of the logical blocks of the virtual volumes VVOL in parallel with processing to assign pages to the virtual volume VVOL mentioned earlier )
The combined teachings of Kim and Iiada do not specifically disclose: wherein the host configures no more than a predetermined count of submission queues for accessing the non-volatile storage media of the storage device concurrently.
However, Lee in an analogous art discloses: wherein the host configures no more than a predetermined count of submission queues for accessing the non-volatile storage media of the storage device concurrently (¶0058; limit/threshold of queues).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the teachings of Kim and Iida because Kim modified with Iida produces an optimal access time according to the speed of the I/O processing by the host (¶0009).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the teachings of Kim, Iida, Kumar and Lee because the combined teachings modified with Lee efficiently allocates and share system resources (¶0015).
Per claim 2, Iida discloses: wherein the performance tier of the account identifies a predetermined input/output speed in accessing the non-volatile storage media of the storage device; and the submission queues are configured to allow the account to access the non-volatile storage media at least at the predetermined input/output speed (¶0009).
Per claim 3, Iida discloses: wherein the host determines, according to the performance tier of the account, a quantity of the submission queues and allocates, the quantity of the submission queues for exclusive use by the account in the computer system (¶0092).
Claims 4is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim et al 20160117119 herein Kim and Iiada et all 20150026402 herein Iiada and Lee et al. 20080222311 herein Lee in view of Kumar 20190370050 herein Kumar.
Per claim 4, the combined teachings of Kim, Iida and Lee disclose assigning queues in view of tiers but does not specifically disclose: wherein the host assigns the submission queues for exclusive use by the account, among a plurality of accounts in the computer system, to achieve the predetermined performance tier in the account accessing the non-volatile storage media.
However, Kumar in an analogous art discloses: wherein the host assigns the submission queues for exclusive use by the account, among a plurality of accounts in the computer system, to achieve the predetermined performance tier in the account accessing the non-volatile storage media (¶0112; discloses a dedicated work queue associated with the I/O device).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention to combine the teachings of Kim, Iida, Lee and Kumar because Kim and Iida modified the allocation process of Kumar because Kumar’s exclusive use of the queues allows for isolation and direct access of I/O device (¶0020).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-18, 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 11/24/25 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The applicant argues: A person of ordinary skill in the relevant fields would recognize that the storage tiers of Iida used to classify the different “storage devices of a plurality of types of varying performance” are different from the “performance tier of an account” from which requests to access “the non-volatile storage media” of the “storage device” recited in claim 1 are entered into “submission queues” configured in the “host” recited in claim 1. A person of ordinary skill in the relevant fields would recognize the “performance tier” in claim 1 is on the demand side of storage. In contrast, the storage tiers in performance discussed in Iida are on the supply side of storage.
The examiner respectfully disagrees and asserts that the combination of Kim and Iiada discloses and wherein the host configures, in the buffer area and according to a predetermined performance tier of an account, submission queues of requests from the account to access the non-volatile storage media. The examiner notes that the applicant erred in its characterization of the Iida reference. The cited portions ¶0071-75 clearly disclose a request coming from a host. Further the storage tier is assigned to the request based on the requirements of the host sending i.e. ¶0075; the storage apparatus 300 monitors the frequency of access by the hosts 100 per unit time to each of the logical blocks of the virtual volumes VVOL in parallel with processing to assign pages to the virtual volume VVOL mentioned earlier. Therefore, not only does Iida discloses storage tiers but the host/account are categorized based on performance. Kim discloses selecting queues based on a weighted scheme. Kim modified with the tiering storage and monitoring the host/account performance would teach selecting a submission queue for the host/account based on access performance. Therefore, the combined teachings of Kim and Iida discloses and wherein the host configures, in the buffer area and according to a predetermined performance tier of an account, submission queues of requests from the account to access the non-volatile storage media.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 BABOUCARR FAAL whose telephone number is (571)270-5073. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:30-5:30 EST.
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BABOUCARR . FAAL
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2138
/BABOUCARR FAAL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2131