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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/13/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 10 and 17 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claims 1, 10 and 17 recite the limitation “the plurality of the plurality of computing clusters”, it should be “the plurality of computing clusters”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1 and 3-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The independent claims 1, 10 and 17, recite the limitation “detecting that a peer-to-peer remote copy (PPRC) state change event has occurred”, however the claims fail to define “PPRC state change” such as (suspension, duplex to pending, fail-over, etc.) making the claims indefinite.
The dependent claims fail to cure the deficiency of the parent claims are also rejected under same rationales as applied to the rejected claims.
Claims 1-2, 4-10, 12-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted steps are: “wherein determining that the PPRC state change event was not caused by the first computing cluster comprises: determining that the first storage device has transitioned from a secondary storage device status to a primary storage device status; and determining that a PPRC remote copy operation associated with the first storage device has been suspended.”
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, 6-10, 12-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fujibayashi et al. (US 7,076,687).
As per claim 1, Fujibayashi teaches a method comprising: detecting that a peer-to-peer remote copy (PPRC) state change event has occurred on a first storage device shared across a plurality of computing clusters (Fujibayashi: col. 2, lines 40-54: “The system comprises a first engine that issues change state commands to a local volume that is mirrored at a secondary site…the second engine compares states of the local volume at the two checks and initiates fail over procedures if the states are different”; col. 2, lines 31-40 and col. 3, lines 5-7 teach clyster system; col. 7, lines 59-64 teaches different states).
Fujibayashi expressly fails to teach determining, by a first computing cluster of the plurality of the plurality of computing clusters, that the PPRC state change event was not caused by the first computing cluster; and initiating a swap event to swap from usage of the first storage device to usage of a second storage device shared across the plurality of computing clusters responsive to the determining that the PPRC state change event was not caused by the first computing cluster. However, Fujibayashi teaches that clusters 130a and 130b comprising hosts 160a and 160b checks the states of PVOL and SVOL and see if they are changed and initiates fail over (swap) procedures (Fujibayashi: col. 2, lines 40-67; col. 5, lines 20-55), where it would be readily apparent to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to determine that the state change event is not caused by the particular host based on the checking of the state changes from primary state to secondary state and initiating fail over to accurately detect the failure and maintain availability of the storage system.
As per claim 2, Fujibayashi teaches wherein the PPRC state change event comprises a PPRC failover event (Fujibayashi: col. 2, lines 40-54: “The system comprises a first engine that issues change state commands to a local volume that is mirrored at a secondary site…the second engine compares states of the local volume at the two checks and initiates fail over procedures if the states are different”; col. 2, lines 31-40 and col. 3, lines 5-7 teach clyster system; col. 7, lines 59-64 teaches different states).
As per claim 6, Fujibayashi teach wherein detecting that the PPRC state change event has occurred comprises receiving an indication of a state change of the first storage device (Fujibayashi: col. 4, lines 55-67).
As per claim 7, Fujibayashi fails to teach , wherein detecting that the PPRC state change event has occurred comprises receiving a state change interrupt message indicative of a state change of the first storage device. However, PPRC state interrupts is signal from the storage system to the host operating systems such as z/OS, z/VM are well known in the art and therefore it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide an interrupt single to indicate state change to host so that host can take appropriate steps to perform fail over.
As per claim 8, Fujibayashi fails to teach , wherein detecting that the PPRC state change event has occurred comprises receiving a unit check message indicative of a state change of the first storage device. However, soft fence unit check message is well known in the swap environment such as HyperSwap environment (see current disclosure par. [0012]). Thus, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide a unit check single to indicate state change to host so that host can take appropriate steps to perform fail over.
As per claim 9, Fujibayashi fails to teach wherein initiating the swap event comprises sending an unplanned swap event notification signal. However, according to current disclosure, unplanned swap events occurs due to the failure of the system. Since, Fujibayashi teaches fail over due to failure in the storage system, Fujibayashi inherently teaches the claimed limitation.
Claims 10, 12-17 and 19-20 are directed to an apparatus and a computer readable medium and are similar in scope with claims 1, 2 and 5-9 above. Fujibayashi teaches an apparatus (fig. 1) and the computer readable medium (claim 7). Thus, claims 10, 12-17 and 19-20 are rejected under same rationales as applied to claims 1, 2 and 5-9 above.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3, 11 and 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.
As allowable subject matter has been indicated, applicant's reply must either comply with all formal requirements (35 USC 112 rejection above) or specifically traverse each requirement not complied with. See 37 CFR 1.111(b) and MPEP § 707.07(a).
Conclusion
The examiner also requests, in response to this Office action, support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line no(s) in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the examiner in prosecuting the application. 37 C.F.R. § 1.75(d) (1) requires such support in the Specification for any new language added to the claims and 37 C.F.R. § 1.83(a) requires support be found in the Drawings for all claimed features.
When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111(c).
Examiner has cited particular columns and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant, in preparing the responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
The cited prior arts of record teaches system with PPRC and determining state of the storage system and performing fail over in the event of failure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KAUSHIKKUMAR M PATEL whose telephone number is (571)272-5536. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri: 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM.
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Kaushikkumar M. Patel
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2138
/Kaushikkumar M Patel/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2138