DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4, 7, 14, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Greifeneder et al. (US PG Pub No. 2016/0105350 A1) in view of Saleh et al. (“vTopology: Virtual MAC Address Aided Network Slicing in Multi-Tenant Data Centers”; Published in: IEEE Network ( Volume: 37, Issue: 2, March/April 2023); Page(s): 214 – 221; October 2022; DOI: 10.1109/MNET.106.2100617).
Regarding claim 1, Greifeneder teaches a method, comprising:
detecting, by a processing system including a processor, a request to initiate a virtual machine on a physical host processing system ([0008], wherein virtual machines are moved), wherein the physical host processing system comprises a physical network interface and wherein the virtual machine comprises a virtual network interface ([0141], wherein “Virtualization systems like hypervisors running multiple virtualized computer systems that have to allow shared and controlled access to physical network interfaces, may create and assign virtualized network interfaces”);
discovering, by the processing system, an association between the virtual network interface and the physical network interface ([0141], wherein “Virtualization systems like hypervisors running multiple virtualized computer systems that have to allow shared and controlled access to physical network interfaces, may create and assign virtualized network interfaces”);
detecting, by the processing system, a physical location of the physical network interface ([0141], wherein “Those virtual network interfaces are typically backed by and mapped to a physical network interface”);
generating, by the processing system, a physical location reference to the physical location of the physical network interface ([0141], wherein “Those virtual network interfaces are typically backed by and mapped to a physical network interface”);
generating, by the processing system, a descriptive media access control (MAC) address,
assigning, by the processing system, the descriptive MAC address to the virtual network interface of the virtual machine, the physical location of the physical network interface being identifiable from within an environment of the virtual machine via the descriptive MAC address ([0141], wherein “Also the generated MAC address for a virtual network interface typically remains unchanged. The MAC address of an OS/virtualized computer system is accessible from both the OS/OS agent side and the virtualization infrastructure/virtualization agent side.”).
Greifeneder does not teach wherein the descriptive MAC address incorporates the physical location reference.
Saleh teaches encoding physical addresses into virtual MAC addresses assigned to virtual machines (pg 215, Left Column, 1st paragraph, wherein “This article presents a novel virtual MAC address (vMAC) that encodes tenants' VDC-ID to be aware of each tenant in MTDC, assuming that each tenant in MTDC has VDC (Virtual Data Center), and each VDC has an identifier VDC-ID”; Right Column, 2nd Full paragraph, wherein “In vTopology, the vMACs are designed to encode the tenant's VDC-ID and the vMAC address location in the physical network infra-structure to provide more flexibility and controllability to define the network slices. The vTopology design is abstracted from physical network”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to encoding physical addresses into virtual MAC addresses assigned to virtual machines. One would be motivated by the desire to allow for the matching the identical vMAC address prefix in different physical switches in the data center network to allow for grouping of virtual ports such as taught by Saleh (pg 215, Right Column, 2nd Full paragraph).
Regarding claim 4, Greifeneder teaches generating, by the processing system, the descriptive MAC address prior to an initiation of the virtual machine on a physical host processing system ([0141], wherein “The assignment of such virtual network interfaces to virtualized computer systems typical remains unchanged, even after a restart of the virtualized host system or the hypervisor. Also the generated MAC address for a virtual network interface typically remains unchanged”).
Regarding claim 7, Greifeneder teaches wherein the descriptive MAC address conforms to a standard format comprising six address segments, each address segment comprising two eight-bit octets ([0071], wherein it is inherent that the MAC address conforms to the standard format).
Regarding claims 14 and 20, they are the device and medium claims of claim 1 above. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons as claim 1 above.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Greifeneder et al. (US PG Pub No. 2016/0105350 A1) in view of in view of Saleh et al. (“vTopology: Virtual MAC Address Aided Network Slicing in Multi-Tenant Data Centers”; Published in: IEEE Network ( Volume: 37, Issue: 2, March/April 2023); Page(s): 214 – 221; October 2022; DOI: 10.1109/MNET.106.2100617), further in view of Christopher et al. (US Pat No. 8,549,187).
Regarding claim 5, Greifeneder and Saleh do not teach identifying, by the processing system, a random value, wherein the descriptive MAC address further comprises a plurality of address segments; and incorporating, by the processing system, the random value into a group of address segments of the plurality of address segments.
Christopher teaches the random generation of MAC address segments (col 6 lines 56-64). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the random value into a group of address segments of the plurality of address segments. One would be motivated by the desire to generate unique MAC address as taught by Christopher.
Claim(s) 8, 10-11, and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Greifeneder et al. (US PG Pub No. 2016/0105350 A1) in view of in view of Saleh et al. (“vTopology: Virtual MAC Address Aided Network Slicing in Multi-Tenant Data Centers”; Published in: IEEE Network ( Volume: 37, Issue: 2, March/April 2023); Page(s): 214 – 221; October 2022; DOI: 10.1109/MNET.106.2100617), further in view of Kopparthi et al. (US PG No. 2017/0075845 A1).
Regarding claim 8, Greifeneder and Saleh do not teach wherein the physical host processing system is configured to manage operation of the virtual machine according to single root input/output virtualization (SRIOV) configured to facilitate sharing of the physical network interface among a plurality of virtual machines comprising the virtual machine, wherein a plurality of virtual functions is associated with a physical function, and wherein the physical function is associated with the physical network interface, the plurality of virtual functions facilitating independent network data exchanges for each virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines.
Kopparthi teaches the use of SRIOV to allow a single network device to be shared among a plurality of virtual machines ([0002]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention that the physical host processing system is configured to manage operation of the virtual machine according to single root input/output virtualization (SRIOV). One would be motivated by the desire to enable different virtual components (e.g., virtual machines) on the host to share the single PCIe device as taught by Kopparthi.
Regarding claim 10, Kopparthi teaches wherein the physical location reference comprises a bus interconnect location of a local computer expansion bus ([0002]; [0014])
Regarding claim 11, Kopparthi teaches wherein the bus interconnect location comprises an expansion bus slot number, and wherein the physical location reference further comprises a port identifier of the physical network interface ([0003]).
Regarding claim 16, it is the device claim of claim 8 above. Therefore, it is rejected for the same reasons as claim 8 above.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-3, 6, 9, 12-13, 15, and 17-19 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ERIC C WAI whose telephone number is (571)270-1012. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9-5.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Aimee Li can be reached at (571) 272-4169. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/Eric C Wai/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2195