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 .
Applicant's submission filed on 02/04/2026 has been entered. Claims 1- 21 have been examined. Claim 21 is new.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks – Pages 10-11 , filed on 02/04/2026, with respect to the rejections of claims 1,9,16 under 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new grounds of rejection is made in view of Behrendt.
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 1-5, 7, 9-13, 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sears et al. Publication No. US 2014/0173065 A1 (Sears hereinafter) in view Spitaels et al. Publication No. US 2005/0246431 A1 ( Spitaels hereinafter) further in view of Behrendt et al. Publication No. US 2016/0283879 A1 ( Behrendt hereinafter)
Regarding claim 1
Sears teaches a method performed by one or more computers, the one or more computers being configured to execute a [...] tool for configuring a cloud computing resource and comprising a state processor and a configuration processor, the method comprising:
obtaining, by the state processor, data indicating (i) a present configuration state of the cloud computing resource, and (ii) a desired state configuration of the cloud computing resource (Abstract - ¶0028 - An Automated Configuration Management System (CMS) assists human operators with administering infrastructure elements in a data center. Configuration state information is collected and stored as a hierarchical set of features and feature attributes; the database 260 stores several different types of information concerning the data center 102. Of particular interest here is that the database 260 stores configuration state. The configuration states can include current states 310 and desired states 320 and other states (not shown) such as past states and intermediate states. A current states 310 entry may include live configuration information taken from and relating to the various infrastructure elements in the data center 102. A desired state entry 320 in database 260 may include a new, revised state to be implemented. Also stored in database 260 is an action library 330 – Fig.2;Fig.3 – ¶ 0036 - More particularly, FIG. 3 shows how a current state 310, a desired state 320 and action library 330 are fed as inputs to a planning system 350. The planning system 350 then generates one or more configuration change actions 333).
determining, by the state processor, that adjusting the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration comprises executing one or more operations classified as involving user confirmation (¶ 0035 -A procedure for assisting the administrative user 280 with changes by automated change management is shown in FIG. 3. The goal here is to not only maintain an accurate representation of the present configuration state of the data center 102 but also to manage the implementation of possible changes to the data center. A desired set of actions can be automatically identified. These actions can subsequently be executed by the administrator or by another software tool to arrive at a target configuration state. The CMS 250 thus helps the human administrator 280 manage configuration changes more effectively – See Also Claims 12-14).
based on the determination that adjusting the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration involves executing, by the state processor, one or more operations classified as likely involving user confirmation, generating a workflow representation for configuring the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration, wherein the workflow representation identifies a hierarchical arrangement of tasks to be performed in configuration of the cloud computing resource, the hierarchical arrangement providing a logical representation of one or more transitions [..], the hierarchical arrangement comprising:(i) a set of tasks to be executed, and(ii) a set of one or more operations to be performed in executing each task included in the set of tasks (¶ 0041 -The planning system 350 can therefore further assist the administrative user 280 by choosing a candidate plan 370 that is optimal according to some overall cost criteria. The criteria may include a cost associated with each candidate plan. An optimal plan can then for example be chosen from the candidate plans 370 by scoring a based on this cost criteria. ¶ 0042 - Once the desired candidate plan 370 is identified, that sequence of actions associated with it can be in fact carried out on the infrastructure elements in the data center such that the desired state 320 is reached - ¶ 0035 -A procedure for assisting the administrative user 280 with changes by automated change management is shown in FIG. 3. The goal here is to not only maintain an accurate representation of the present configuration state of the data center 102 but also to manage the implementation of possible changes to the data center. A desired set of actions can be automatically identified. These actions can subsequently be executed by the administrator or by another software tool to arrive at a target configuration state. The CMS 250 thus helps the human administrator 280 manage configuration changes more effectively – Fig.5).
providing, by the configuration processor, a user interface for output to a computing device, wherein the user interface enables a user to perceive the hierarchical arrangement of tasks to be performed in configuration of the cloud computing resource (¶ 0061 – 0066 -As a second usage example, the administrator specifies a desired state where customers "abc-inc" and "xyx-co" are not sharing hosts or data stores, in order to isolate each customer from possible performance problems caused by the other. After analyzing host and data store capacity, the planning system would generate the following plan: (0062] 1. Move abc-inc VM web0l to host hyper2 (0063] 2. Move abc-inc VM web02 to host hyper2 (0064] 3. Move xyz-co VM app03 to host hyperl (0065] 4. Move xyz-co VM app02 to data store lun3 (0066] As a third example, the administrator might specify a desired state where abc-inc VM web0l had a cpu_count of 8z – ¶ 0035 -A procedure for assisting the administrative user 280 with changes by automated change management is shown in FIG. 3. The goal here is to not only maintain an accurate representation of the present configuration state of the data center 102 but also to manage the implementation of possible changes to the data center. A desired set of actions can be automatically identified. These actions can subsequently be executed by the administrator or by another software tool to arrive at a target configuration state. The CMS 250 thus helps the human administrator 280 manage configuration changes more effectively – See Fig.5; ¶ 0026).
However, Sears does not explicitly teach that the tool is a command line tool.
wherein the workflow representation using the one or more transitions is configured to create a component or an instance of the cloud computing resource
the set of tasks correspond to a first-level of sequence processing, and the set of one or more operations correspond to a second-level of sequence processing that is different from the first-level, wherein an operation among the set of one or more operations is performed in executing each one of the set of tasks in the first level of sequence processing and each operation includes one or more parameters; wherein the one or more parameters are configured to be adjusted by the command line tool.
However, Spitaels teaches
the tool is command line tool , the one or more parameters are configured to be adjusted by the command line tool (¶0007 - Network devices that implement repeating, bridging, and routing generally include interfaces (e.g., command line, web-based, or SNMP agent interfaces) through which network device configurations may be changed (e.g., by a network administrator or other user). More particularly, network devices may receive manual configuration changes in operating parameters that affect how the network device forwards data).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears to include the teachings of Spitaels. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to perform faster operations using command line than navigating through multiple menu.
Behrendt teaches
the hierarchical arrangement providing a logical representation of one or more transitions, wherein the workflow representation using the one or more transitions is configured to create a component or an instance of the cloud computing resource (¶0035 - orchestration service provider 130 implements the generated final plan, along with log information orchestration service provider 130 generates transitions between each of the services, in order to aid in determining at which point an error has occurred, if the final plan execution fails at some point. The transitions act as a checkpoint, at which all the information is processed and logged before moving on to the next service. In this manner, orchestration service provider 130 contains the logs and traceability information for each checkpoint, and is better able to identify at which step of a sub plan an error may have occurred - ¶0039- sub plans 301A-D each represent the specific steps required to complete a particular service. Transitions 320, 330, 340, 350, and 360 are each checkpoints, placed between each set of sub plans – Abstract -Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for constructing a plan for creating a cloud service , ¶0036 - In step 248, orchestration service provider 130 executes the generated final plan. In this exemplary embodiment, orchestration service provider 130 executes the final plan as one process instance, and calls each service provider interface in the order specified in the final plan, along with the logging information at each transition -¶0027 -TSAM service provider can replace the "compute service" placeholder node with the specific steps (i.e., sub plan) required to create the "compute service", such as, (a) get network configuration, (b) create disk, and ( c) create VM, ¶0038 -sub plan 301 A is 'get network configuration,' sub plan 301B is ' create disk,' sub plan 301C is 'create VM,' and sub plan 301D is 'OS deployment and config.');
the set of tasks correspond to a first-level of sequence processing and the set of one or more operations correspond to a second-level of sequence processing that is different from the first-level, wherein an operation among the set of one or more operations is performed in executing each one of the set of tasks in the first level of sequence processing and each operation includes one or more parameters (Claim 1 - generating, by the configurator, a first plan, wherein the first plan comprises workflow steps representing the one or more services -¶0022 - In step 206, configurator 140 generates a skeleton plan from the set of selected services. In this exemplary embodiment, configurator 140 uses information gathered from each service provider during the registration (step 202) and generates a rough description of the cloud service by ordering the selected services, based on the category of each service. For example, an ordering of selected services can be: (1) compute service, (2) network service, (3) storage service - ¶0027 - the service provider fulfilling the request inputs the node with their sub plan. In this exemplary embodiment, the service provider which is handling the message request replaces the general topic placeholder node of the skeleton plan and inserts the specific steps (i.e., sub plan) required to fulfill the particular service. For example, the TSAM service provider can replace the "compute service" placeholder node with the specific steps (i.e., sub plan) required to create the "compute service", such as, (a) get network configuration, (b) create disk, and ( c) create VM (described in further detail with respect to FIG. 3A)).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears in view of Spitaels to include the teachings of Behrendt. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to construct a plan for creating a cloud service ( Behrendt – Abstract).
Regarding claim 2
Sears further teaches
wherein the user interface enables the user to provide one or more user inputs to adjust the hierarchical arrangement of tasks to be performed in configuration of the cloud computing resource (¶ 0026 - An administrative user 280 has access to a Configuration Management System 250. The CMS 250 allows the administrator user 280 to review and change the configuration of selected infrastructure elements in the data center 102 - Claim 14 - presenting a state of an executing plan to the user and altering the plan according to user input – See Claim 16).
Regarding claim 3
Sears further teaches
wherein the hierarchical arrangement of tasks specified in the workflow representation indicates a sequence for executing tasks (¶ 0040 - When one or more change actions 330 are applied together, such as in a sequence of change actions that would result in the current state 310 being transformed into a new state that corresponds to the desired state 320, those actions together can represent a candidate plan 370. Planning system 350 may find alternate combinations of change actions 333 that can also identify still other candidate plans to reach the desired state 320 given the current state 310).
Regarding claim 4
Sears further teaches
wherein the hierarchical arrangement of tasks specified in the workflow representation indicates, for each of the tasks: the set of one or more operations to be performed during execution of a particular task; and one or more execution parameters associated with each of the operations included in the set of one or more operations (Fig.4 &Fig.5, ¶ 0045 – ¶ 0050. Each example action includes parameters associate with the action, prerequisites needed for the action to be considered as part of the candidate plan, effects of the action and the cost associated with the action. It is therefore now understood how the state entries take a general hierarchical form indicating not only data center infrastructure elements but also one or more associated attributes and one or more values associated with the attributes –See Example in ¶ 0052-¶ 0066).
Regarding claim 5
Sears further teaches
wherein the user interface enables the user to provide one or more user inputs to adjust values for the one or more execution parameters (¶ 0026 - An administrative user 280 has access to a Configuration Management System 250. The CMS 250 allows the administrator user 280 to review and change the configuration of selected infrastructure elements in the data center 102 - Claim 14 - presenting a state of an executing plan to the user and altering the plan according to user input – See Claim 16).
Regarding claim 7
Sears further teaches
obtaining, from the computing device, data indicating a confirmation by the user to initiate adjustment of the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration; in response to obtaining the data indicating a confirmation by the user to initiate adjustment of the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration, generating a configuration instruction based on the workflow representation; and providing the configuration instruction to a configuration server associated with the cloud computing resource(¶ 0035 -A procedure for assisting the administrative user 280 with changes by automated change management is shown in FIG. 3. The goal here is to not only maintain an accurate representation of the present configuration state of the data center 102 but also to manage the implementation of possible changes to the data center. A desired set of actions can be automatically identified. These actions can subsequently be executed by the administrator or by another software tool to arrive at a target configuration state. The CMS 250 thus helps the human administrator 280 manage configuration changes more effectively – Claim 9 - wherein the plan is devised by selecting the set of actions to be taken from multiple possible sets of actions to be taken that would achieve the desired configuration state by comparing relative costs associated therewith. – ¶ 0026 – 027 - An administrative user 280 has access to a Configuration Management System 250. The CMS 250 allows the administrator user 280 to review and change the configuration of selected infrastructure elements in the data center 102. (0027] The CMS 250 may itself be located in the same physical location as the data center 102, elsewhere the premises of the service provider 100, at the service customer premises, or remotely located and securely accessing the data center through either the private network 110 or the Internet - See Also Claims 12-14;¶ 0069).
Regarding claim 9
Sears teaches a system comprising: one or more computing devices configured to execute a [...] tool for configuring a cloud computing resource, and comprising a configuration state processor and a configuration module; and a non-transitory computer-readable storage device storing instructions that are executable by the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:
obtaining, by the configuration state processor, data indicating (i) a present configuration state of the cloud computing resource, and (ii) a desired state configuration of the cloud computing resource (Abstract - ¶ 0028 - An Automated Configuration Management System (CMS) assists human operators with administering infrastructure elements in a data center. Configuration state information is collected and stored as a hierarchical set of features and feature attributes; the database 260 stores several different types of information concerning the data center 102. Of particular interest here is that the database 260 stores configuration state. The configuration states can include current states 310 and desired states 320 and other states (not shown) such as past states and intermediate states. A current states 310 entry may include live configuration information taken from and relating to the various infrastructure elements in the data center 102. A desired state entry 320 in database 260 may include a new, revised state to be implemented. Also stored in database 260 is an action library 330 – Fig.2;Fig.3 – ¶ 0036 - More particularly, FIG. 3 shows how a current state 310, a desired state 320 and action library 330 are fed as inputs to a planning system 350. The planning system 350 then generates one or more configuration change actions 333).
determining, by the configuration state processor, that adjusting the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration comprises executing one or more operations classified as involving user confirmation (¶ 0035 -A procedure for assisting the administrative user 280 with changes by automated change management is shown in FIG. 3. The goal here is to not only maintain an accurate representation of the present configuration state of the data center 102 but also to manage the implementation of possible changes to the data center. A desired set of actions can be automatically identified. These actions can subsequently be executed by the administrator or by another software tool to arrive at a target configuration state. The CMS 250 thus helps the human administrator 280 manage configuration changes more effectively – See Also Claims 12-14).
based on the determination that adjusting the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration involves executing, by the configuration state processor, one or more operations classified as likely involving user confirmation, generating a workflow representation for configuring the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration, wherein the workflow representation identifies a hierarchical arrangement of tasks to be performed in configuration of the cloud computing resource. the hierarchical arrangement providing a logical representation of one or more transitions [..] , the hierarchical arrangement comprising:(i) a set of tasks to be executed, and(ii) a set of one or more operations to be performed in executing each task included in the set of tasks (¶ 0041 -The planning system 350 can therefore further assist the administrative user 280 by choosing a candidate plan 370 that is optimal according to some overall cost criteria. The criteria may include a cost associated with each candidate plan. An optimal plan can then for example be chosen from the candidate plans 370 by scoring a based on this cost criteria. ¶ 0042 - Once the desired candidate plan 370 is identified, that sequence of actions associated with it can be in fact carried out on the infrastructure elements in the data center such that the desired state 320 is reached - ¶ 0035 -A procedure for assisting the administrative user 280 with changes by automated change management is shown in FIG. 3. The goal here is to not only maintain an accurate representation of the present configuration state of the data center 102 but also to manage the implementation of possible changes to the data center. A desired set of actions can be automatically identified. These actions can subsequently be executed by the administrator or by another software tool to arrive at a target configuration state. The CMS 250 thus helps the human administrator 280 manage configuration changes more effectively – Fig.5).
providing, by the configuration module, a user interface for output to a computing device, wherein the user interface enables a user to perceive the hierarchical arrangement of tasks to be performed in configuration of the cloud computing resource (¶ 0061 – 0066 -As a second usage example, the administrator specifies a desired state where customers "abc-inc" and "xyx-co" are not sharing hosts or datastores, in order to isolate each customer from possible performance problems caused by the other. After analyzing host and datastore capacity, the planning system would generate the following plan: (0062] 1. Move abc-inc VM web0l to host hyper2 (0063] 2. Move abc-inc VM web02 to host hyper2 (0064] 3. Move xyz-co VM app03 to host hyperl (0065] 4. Move xyz-co VM app02 to datastore lun3 (0066] As a third example, the administrator might specify a desired state where abc-inc VM web0l had a cpu_count of 8z – ¶ 0035 -A procedure for assisting the administrative user 280 with changes by automated change management is shown in FIG. 3. The goal here is to not only maintain an accurate representation of the present configuration state of the data center 102 but also to manage the implementation of possible changes to the data center. A desired set of actions can be automatically identified. These actions can subsequently be executed by the administrator or by another software tool to arrive at a target configuration state. The CMS 250 thus helps the human administrator 280 manage configuration changes more effectively – See Fig.5; ¶ 0026).
However, Sears does not explicitly teach that the tool is a command line tool.
wherein the workflow representation using the one or more transitions is configured to create a component or an instance of the cloud computing resource
the set of tasks correspond to a first-level of sequence processing, and the set of one or more operations correspond to a second-level of sequence processing that is different from the first-level, wherein an operation among the set of one or more operations is performed in executing each one of the set of tasks in the first level of sequence processing and each operation includes one or more parameters; wherein the one or more parameters are configured to be adjusted by the command line tool.
However, Spitaels teaches
the tool is command line tool , the one or more parameters are configured to be adjusted by the command line tool (¶0007 - Network devices that implement repeating, bridging, and routing generally include interfaces (e.g., command line, web-based, or SNMP agent interfaces) through which network device configurations may be changed (e.g., by a network administrator or other user). More particularly, network devices may receive manual configuration changes in operating parameters that affect how the network device forwards data).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears to include the teachings of Spitaels. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to perform faster operations using command line than navigating through multiple menu.
Behrendt teaches
the hierarchical arrangement providing a logical representation of one or more transitions, wherein the workflow representation using the one or more transitions is configured to create a component or an instance of the cloud computing resource (¶0035 - orchestration service provider 130 implements the generated final plan, along with log information orchestration service provider 130 generates transitions between each of the services, in order to aid in determining at which point an error has occurred, if the final plan execution fails at some point. The transitions act as a checkpoint, at which all the information is processed and logged before moving on to the next service. In this manner, orchestration service provider 130 contains the logs and traceability information for each checkpoint, and is better able to identify at which step of a sub plan an error may have occurred - ¶0039- sub plans 301A-D each represent the specific steps required to complete a particular service. Transitions 320, 330, 340, 350, and 360 are each checkpoints, placed between each set of sub plans – Abstract -Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for constructing a plan for creating a cloud service , ¶0036 - In step 248, orchestration service provider 130 executes the generated final plan. In this exemplary embodiment, orchestration service provider 130 executes the final plan as one process instance, and calls each service provider interface in the order specified in the final plan, along with the logging information at each transition -¶0027 -TSAM service provider can replace the "compute service" placeholder node with the specific steps (i.e., sub plan) required to create the "compute service", such as, (a) get network configuration, (b) create disk, and ( c) create VM, ¶0038 -sub plan 301 A is 'get network configuration,' sub plan 301B is ' create disk,' sub plan 301C is 'create VM,' and sub plan 301D is 'OS deployment and config.');
the set of tasks correspond to a first-level of sequence processing and the set of one or more operations correspond to a second-level of sequence processing that is different from the first-level, wherein an operation among the set of one or more operations is performed in executing each one of the set of tasks in the first level of sequence processing and each operation includes one or more parameters ((Claim 1 - generating, by the configurator, a first plan, wherein the first plan comprises workflow steps representing the one or more services -¶0022 - In step 206, configurator 140 generates a skeleton plan from the set of selected services. In this exemplary embodiment, configurator 140 uses information gathered from each service provider during the registration (step 202) and generates a rough description of the cloud service by ordering the selected services, based on the category of each service. For example, an ordering of selected services can be: (1) compute service, (2) network service, (3) storage service - ¶0027 - the service provider fulfilling the request inputs the node with their sub plan. In this exemplary embodiment, the service provider which is handling the message request replaces the general topic placeholder node of the skeleton plan and inserts the specific steps (i.e., sub plan) required to fulfill the particular service. For example, the TSAM service provider can replace the "compute service" placeholder node with the specific steps (i.e., sub plan) required to create the "compute service", such as, (a) get network configuration, (b) create disk, and ( c) create VM (described in further detail with respect to FIG. 3A)).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears in view of Spitaels to include the teachings of Behrendt. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to construct a plan for creating a cloud service ( Behrendt – Abstract).
Regarding claim 10
Sears further teaches
wherein the user interface enables the user to provide one or more user inputs to adjust the hierarchical arrangement of tasks to be performed in configuration of the cloud computing resource (¶ 0026 - An administrative user 280 has access to a Configuration Management System 250. The CMS 250 allows the administrator user 280 to review and change the configuration of selected infrastructure elements in the data center 102 - Claim 14 - presenting a state of an executing plan to the user and altering the plan according to user input – See Claim 16).
Regarding claim 11
Sears further teaches
wherein the hierarchical arrangement of tasks specified in the workflow representation indicates a sequence for executing tasks (¶ 0040 - When one or more change actions 330 are applied together, such as in a sequence of change actions that would result in the current state 310 being transformed into a new state that corresponds to the desired state 320, those actions together can represent a candidate plan 370. Planning system 350 may find alternate combinations of change actions 333 that can also identify still other candidate plans to reach the desired state 320 given the current state 310).
Regarding claim 12
Sears further teaches
wherein the hierarchical arrangement of tasks specified in the workflow representation indicates, for each of the tasks: a set of one or more operations to be performed during execution of a particular task; and one or more execution parameters associated with each of the operations included in the set of one or more operations (Fig.4 &Fig.5, ¶ 0045 – ¶ 0050. Each example action includes parameters associate with the action, prerequisites needed for the action to be considered as part of the candidate plan, effects of the action and the cost associated with the action. It is therefore now understood how the state entries take a general hierarchical form indicating not only data center infrastructure elements but also one or more associated attributes and one or more values associated with the attributes –See Example in ¶ 0052-¶ 0066).
Regarding claim 13
Sears further teaches
wherein the user interface enables the user to provide one or more user inputs to adjust values for the execution parameters (¶ 0026 - An administrative user 280 has access to a Configuration Management System 250. The CMS 250 allows the administrator user 280 to review and change the configuration of selected infrastructure elements in the data center 102 - Claim 14 - presenting a state of an executing plan to the user and altering the plan according to user input – See Claim 16).
Regarding claim 15
Sears further teaches
obtaining, from the computing device, data indicating a confirmation by the user to initiate adjustment of the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration; in response to obtaining the data indicating a confirmation by the user to initiate adjustment of the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration, generating a configuration instruction based on the workflow representation; and providing the configuration instruction to a configuration server associated with the cloud computing resource(¶ 0035 -A procedure for assisting the administrative user 280 with changes by automated change management is shown in FIG. 3. The goal here is to not only maintain an accurate representation of the present configuration state of the data center 102 but also to manage the implementation of possible changes to the data center. A desired set of actions can be automatically identified. These actions can subsequently be executed by the administrator or by another software tool to arrive at a target configuration state. The CMS 250 thus helps the human administrator 280 manage configuration changes more effectively – Claim 9 - wherein the plan is devised by selecting the set of actions to be taken from multiple possible sets of actions to be taken that would achieve the desired configuration state by comparing relative costs associated therewith. – ¶ 0026 – 027 - An administrative user 280 has access to a Configuration Management System 250. The CMS 250 allows the administrator user 280 to review and change the configuration of selected infrastructure elements in the data center 102. (0027] The CMS 250 may itself be located in the same physical location as the data center 102, elsewhere the premises of the service provider 100, at the service customer premises, or remotely located and securely accessing the data center through either the private network 110 or the Internet - See Also Claims 12-14;¶ 0069).
Regarding claim 16
Sears teaches at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage device storing instructions that are executable by one or more computing devices configured to execute a [...] tool for configuring a cloud computing resource and comprising a state processor and a configuration processor, wherein the instructions cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising:
obtaining, by the state processor, data indicating (i) a present configuration state of the cloud computing resource, and (ii) a desired state configuration of the cloud computing resource (Abstract - ¶ 0028 - An Automated Configuration Management System (CMS) assists human operators with administering infrastructure elements in a data center. Configuration state information is collected and stored as a hierarchical set of features and feature attributes; the database 260 stores several different types of information concerning the data center 102. Of particular interest here is that the database 260 stores configuration state. The configuration states can include current states 310 and desired states 320 and other states (not shown) such as past states and intermediate states. A current states 310 entry may include live configuration information taken from and relating to the various infrastructure elements in the data center 102. A desired state entry 320 in database 260 may include a new, revised state to be implemented. Also stored in database 260 is an action library 330 – Fig.2;Fig.3 – ¶ 0036 - More particularly, FIG. 3 shows how a current state 310, a desired state 320 and action library 330 are fed as inputs to a planning system 350. The planning system 350 then generates one or more configuration change actions 333).
determining, by the state processor, that adjusting the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration comprises executing one or more operations classified as involving user confirmation (¶ 0035 -A procedure for assisting the administrative user 280 with changes by automated change management is shown in FIG. 3. The goal here is to not only maintain an accurate representation of the present configuration state of the data center 102 but also to manage the implementation of possible changes to the data center. A desired set of actions can be automatically identified. These actions can subsequently be executed by the administrator or by another software tool to arrive at a target configuration state. The CMS 250 thus helps the human administrator 280 manage configuration changes more effectively – See Also Claims 12-14).
based on the determination that adjusting the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration involves executing, by the state processor, one or more operations classified as likely involving user confirmation, generating a workflow representation for configuring the cloud computing resource from the present state configuration to the desired state configuration, wherein the workflow representation identifies a hierarchical arrangement of tasks to be performed in configuration of the cloud computing resource, the hierarchical arrangement providing a logical representation of one or more transitions [..] , the hierarchical arrangement comprising comprising:(i) a set of tasks to be executed, and(ii) a set of one or more operations to be performed in executing each task included in the set of tasks (¶ 0041 -The planning system 350 can therefore further assist the administrative user 280 by choosing a candidate plan 370 that is optimal according to some overall cost criteria. The criteria may include a cost associated with each candidate plan. An optimal plan can then for example be chosen from the candidate plans 370 by scoring a based on this cost criteria. ¶ 0042 - Once the desired candidate plan 370 is identified, that sequence of actions associated with it can be in fact carried out on the infrastructure elements in the data center such that the desired state 320 is reached - ¶ 0035 -A procedure for assisting the administrative user 280 with changes by automated change management is shown in FIG. 3. The goal here is to not only maintain an accurate representation of the present configuration state of the data center 102 but also to manage the implementation of possible changes to the data center. A desired set of actions can be automatically identified. These actions can subsequently be executed by the administrator or by another software tool to arrive at a target configuration state. The CMS 250 thus helps the human administrator 280 manage configuration changes more effectively – Fig.5).
providing, by the configuration processor, a user interface for output to a computing device, wherein the user interface enables a user to perceive the hierarchical arrangement of tasks to be performed in configuration of the cloud computing resource (¶ 0061 – 0066 -As a second usage example, the administrator specifies a desired state where customers "abc-inc" and "xyx-co" are not sharing hosts or datastores, in order to isolate each customer from possible performance problems caused by the other. After analyzing host and datastore capacity, the planning system would generate the following plan: (0062] 1. Move abc-inc VM web0l to host hyper2 (0063] 2. Move abc-inc VM web02 to host hyper2 (0064] 3. Move xyz-co VM app03 to host hyperl (0065] 4. Move xyz-co VM app02 to datastore lun3 (0066] As a third example, the administrator might specify a desired state where abc-inc VM web0l had a cpu_count of 8z – ¶ 0035 -A procedure for assisting the administrative user 280 with changes by automated change management is shown in FIG. 3. The goal here is to not only maintain an accurate representation of the present configuration state of the data center 102 but also to manage the implementation of possible changes to the data center. A desired set of actions can be automatically identified. These actions can subsequently be executed by the administrator or by another software tool to arrive at a target configuration state. The CMS 250 thus helps the human administrator 280 manage configuration changes more effectively – See Fig.5; ¶ 0026).
However, Sears does not explicitly teach that the tool is a command line tool.
wherein the workflow representation using the one or more transitions is configured to create a component or an instance of the cloud computing resource
the set of tasks correspond to a first-level of sequence processing, and the set of one or more operations correspond to a second-level of sequence processing that is different from the first-level, wherein an operation among the set of one or more operations is performed in executing each one of the set of tasks in the first level of sequence processing and each operation includes one or more parameters; wherein the one or more parameters are configured to be adjusted by the command line tool.
However, Spitaels teaches
the tool is command line tool , the one or more parameters are configured to be adjusted by the command line tool (¶0007 - Network devices that implement repeating, bridging, and routing generally include interfaces (e.g., command line, web-based, or SNMP agent interfaces) through which network device configurations may be changed (e.g., by a network administrator or other user). More particularly, network devices may receive manual configuration changes in operating parameters that affect how the network device forwards data).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears to include the teachings of Spitaels. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to perform faster operations using command line than navigating through multiple menu.
Behrendt teaches
the hierarchical arrangement providing a logical representation of one or more transitions, wherein the workflow representation using the one or more transitions is configured to create a component or an instance of the cloud computing resource (¶0035 - orchestration service provider 130 implements the generated final plan, along with log information orchestration service provider 130 generates transitions between each of the services, in order to aid in determining at which point an error has occurred, if the final plan execution fails at some point. The transitions act as a checkpoint, at which all the information is processed and logged before moving on to the next service. In this manner, orchestration service provider 130 contains the logs and traceability information for each checkpoint, and is better able to identify at which step of a sub plan an error may have occurred - ¶0039- sub plans 301A-D each represent the specific steps required to complete a particular service. Transitions 320, 330, 340, 350, and 360 are each checkpoints, placed between each set of sub plans – Abstract -Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for constructing a plan for creating a cloud service , ¶0036 - In step 248, orchestration service provider 130 executes the generated final plan. In this exemplary embodiment, orchestration service provider 130 executes the final plan as one process instance, and calls each service provider interface in the order specified in the final plan, along with the logging information at each transition -¶0027 -TSAM service provider can replace the "compute service" placeholder node with the specific steps (i.e., sub plan) required to create the "compute service", such as, (a) get network configuration, (b) create disk, and ( c) create VM, ¶0038 -sub plan 301 A is 'get network configuration,' sub plan 301B is ' create disk,' sub plan 301C is 'create VM,' and sub plan 301D is 'OS deployment and config.');
the set of tasks correspond to a first-level of sequence processing and the set of one or more operations correspond to a second-level of sequence processing that is different from the first-level, wherein an operation among the set of one or more operations is performed in executing each one of the set of tasks in the first level of sequence processing and each operation includes one or more parameters ((Claim 1 - generating, by the configurator, a first plan, wherein the first plan comprises workflow steps representing the one or more services -¶0022 - In step 206, configurator 140 generates a skeleton plan from the set of selected services. In this exemplary embodiment, configurator 140 uses information gathered from each service provider during the registration (step 202) and generates a rough description of the cloud service by ordering the selected services, based on the category of each service. For example, an ordering of selected services can be: (1) compute service, (2) network service, (3) storage service - ¶0027 - the service provider fulfilling the request inputs the node with their sub plan. In this exemplary embodiment, the service provider which is handling the message request replaces the general topic placeholder node of the skeleton plan and inserts the specific steps (i.e., sub plan) required to fulfill the particular service. For example, the TSAM service provider can replace the "compute service" placeholder node with the specific steps (i.e., sub plan) required to create the "compute service", such as, (a) get network configuration, (b) create disk, and ( c) create VM (described in further detail with respect to FIG. 3A)).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears in view of Spitaels to include the teachings of Behrendt. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to construct a plan for creating a cloud service ( Behrendt – Abstract).
Regarding claim 17
Sears further teaches
wherein the user interface enables the user to provide one or more user inputs to adjust the hierarchical arrangement of tasks to be performed in configuration of the cloud computing resource (¶ 0026 - An administrative user 280 has access to a Configuration Management System 250. The CMS 250 allows the administrator user 280 to review and change the configuration of selected infrastructure elements in the data center 102 - Claim 14 - presenting a state of an executing plan to the user and altering the plan according to user input – See Claim 16).
Regarding claim 18
Sears further teaches
wherein the hierarchical arrangement of tasks specified in the workflow representation indicates a sequence for executing tasks (¶ 0040 - When one or more change actions 330 are applied together, such as in a sequence of change actions that would result in the current state 310 being transformed into a new state that corresponds to the desired state 320, those actions together can represent a candidate plan 370. Planning system 350 may find alternate combinations of change actions 333 that can also identify still other candidate plans to reach the desired state 320 given the current state 310).
Regarding claim 19
Sears further teaches
wherein the hierarchical arrangement of tasks specified in the workflow representation indicates, for each of the tasks: a set of one or more operations to be performed during execution of a particular task; and one or more execution parameters associated with each of the operations included in the set of one or more operations (Fig.4 &Fig.5, ¶ 0045 – ¶ 0050. Each example action includes parameters associate with the action, prerequisites needed for the action to be considered as part of the candidate plan, effects of the action and the cost associated with the action. It is therefore now understood how the state entries take a general hierarchical form indicating not only data center infrastructure elements but also one or more associated attributes and one or more values associated with the attributes –See Example in ¶ 0052-¶ 0066).
Regarding claim 20
Sears further teaches
wherein the user interface enables the user to provide one or more user inputs to adjust values for the one or more execution parameters (¶ 0026 - An administrative user 280 has access to a Configuration Management System 250. The CMS 250 allows the administrator user 280 to review and change the configuration of selected infrastructure elements in the data center 102 - Claim 14 - presenting a state of an executing plan to the user and altering the plan according to user input – See Claim 16)..
Claims 6, 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sears in view of Spitaels further in view of Behrendt further in view of Koppes et al. Patent No. US 11,086,685 B1 (Koppes hereinafter).
Regarding claim 6
Sears further teaches
wherein the tasks specified by the hierarchical arrangement of tasks comprises: [..] a third task to migrate one or more components presently configured to the existing instance to the new instance (Fig.4 &5 – ¶ 0053-0055 - Another example action 333-2 is "install an OS update on a virtual machine with a reboot". This action will install a Windows OS update on VM where that update requires a reboot. Any prerequisite update must first be installed. The selected update should also not already be installed. The cost associated with this example action is 300 seconds. (0054] the third action 333-3 moves a VM to a new host. Here the action is to migrate a VM to a new physical host server, but only if the amount of total physical memory and CPU count of all VM's on the new host will not become overcommitted. The prerequisites of this action 333-3 therefore check the amount of memory and the number of CPUs available on the candidate new host. The resulting effect is to change the VM host to the new hostname. A, cost associated with this action is 450 seconds) .
However, Sears does not explicitly teach a first task to delete an existing instance of the cloud computing resource, a second task to create a new instance of the cloud computing resource;
Behrendt teaches
a second task to create a new instance of the cloud computing resource (- ¶ 0027, ¶ 0038).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears to include the teachings of Behrendt. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to construct a plan for creating a cloud service ( Behrendt – Abstract).
Koppes teaches
a first task to delete an existing instance of the cloud computing resource (Col.4, lines 40-50 - Instantiating resources within a logical container allows the user, and other provider services, to manage the corresponding resource instances as a single unit. In various embodiments, the virtual resource instances may be created, updated, and/or deleted by creating, updating, or deleting a stack instance. In some embodiments, all virtual resource instances must be created or deleted successfully for the stack to be created or deleted; if, for example, a virtual resource instance fails to be created, the system may "roll back" the stack by automatically deleting any stack resources that have already been created – Col. 26, lines 50-67).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears in view of Behrendt to include the teachings of Koppes. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to create and delete virtual resource instances and configure them according to the item definitions in the resource set definition (Col.31, lines 45-50 – Koppes).
Regarding claim 14
Sears further teaches
wherein the tasks specified by the hierarchical arrangement of tasks comprises; [..] a third task to migrate one or more components presently configured to the existing instance to the new instance (Fig.4 &5 – ¶ 0053-0055 - Another example action 333-2 is "install an OS update on a virtual machine with a reboot". This action will install a Windows OS update on VM where that update requires a reboot. Any prerequisite update must first be installed. The selected update should also not already be installed. The cost associated with this example action is 300 seconds. (0054] the third action 333-3 moves a VM to a new host. Here the action is to migrate a VM to a new physical host server, but only if the amount of total physical memory and CPU count of all VM's on the new host will not become overcommitted. The prerequisites of this action 333-3 therefore check the amount of memory and the number of CPUs available on the candidate new host. The resulting effect is to change the VM host to the new hostname. A, cost associated with this action is 450 seconds)
However, Sears does not explicitly teach a first task to delete an existing instance of the cloud computing resource, a second task to create a new instance of the cloud computing resource;
Behrendt teaches
a second task to create a new instance of the cloud computing resource (- ¶ 0027, ¶ 0038).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears to include the teachings of Behrendt. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to construct a plan for creating a cloud service ( Behrendt – Abstract).
Koppes teaches
a first task to delete an existing instance of the cloud computing resource (Col.4, lines 40-50 - Instantiating resources within a logical container allows the user, and other provider services, to manage the corresponding resource instances as a single unit. In various embodiments, the virtual resource instances may be created, updated, and/or deleted by creating, updating, or deleting a stack instance. In some embodiments, all virtual resource instances must be created or deleted successfully for the stack to be created or deleted; if, for example, a virtual resource instance fails to be created, the system may "roll back" the stack by automatically deleting any stack resources that have already been created – Col. 26, lines 50-67).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears in view of Behrendt to include the teachings of Koppes. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to create and delete virtual resource instances and configure them according to the item definitions in the resource set definition (Col.31, lines 45-50 – Koppes).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sears in view of Spitaels further in view of Behrendt further in view of Rickman et al. Publication No. US 2014/0169213 A1 (Rickman hereinafter).
Regarding claim 8
Sears further teaches
wherein generating a configuration instruction comprises: identifying, for each of the tasks within the hierarchical arrangement of tasks specified by the workflow representation, the set of one or more operations to be performed during execution of a particular task (Fig.4 &5 shows a set of one or more operations to be performed during execution);
However, Sears does not explicitly each
determining a programming language used by the configuration server to configure the cloud computing resource; and generating the configuration instruction such that the configuration instruction is coded according to the programming language used by the configuration server to configure the cloud computing resource
Rickman teaches
determining a programming language used by the configuration server to configure the cloud computing resource; and generating the configuration instruction such that the configuration instruction is coded according to the programming language used by the configuration server to configure the cloud computing resource (¶ 0037 - shown in FIG. 4, process 400 may include generating configuration code to configure the network devices to provide the network service (block 430). For example, provisioning device 220 may determine the network devices 230 required to provide the network service, and may generate configuration code that configures those network devices 230 to provide the network service. The configuration code may include, for example, programming code. Provisioning device 220 may generate the configuration code based on the type of network device 230 to be configured. For example, different network devices 230 may operate using different programming codes. Provisioning device 220 may determine the programming code language used to program a particular network device 230 (e.g., by receiving information from the particular network device 230 and/or another device, by retrieving the information from a data structure accessible by provisioning device 230, etc.), and may generate the configuration code for the particular network device 230 using the determined programming code language).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears to include the teachings of Rickman. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to generate the configuration code based on the type of network device 230 to be configured. For example, different network devices 230 may operate using different programming codes (¶ 0037– Rickman).
Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sears in view Spitaels further in view of Behrendt further in view of Nelson et al. Publication No. US 2013/0117422 A1 (Nelson hereinafter) .
Regarding claim 21
Sears in view of Behrendt further teaches perceiving the hierarchical arrangement (See Sears – ¶0041- ¶0042, ¶0035, Behrendt - ¶0035-¶0038, ¶0021).
However, Sears in view of Behrendt does not explicitly teach perceiving the hierarchical arrangement enables the user to visualize each change prior to implementation of the desired state configuration
Nelson teaches
perceiving the hierarchical arrangement enables the user to visualize each change prior to implementation of the desired state configuration ( ¶ 0024 -FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of one embodiment of the hybrid configuration method 300 executed by the hybrid configuration engine 100. First, the hybrid configuration engine 100 executes a configuration wizard providing a user interface (302) to interact with the administrator 120 and obtain specific information about the on-premise solution 106 and the cloud-based solution 108. In order to gain access to configure the on-premise solution 106 and the cloud-based solution 108 for hybrid deployment – ¶ 0026 - the hybrid configuration engine 100 determines or derives the configuration tasks needed to achieve the desired configuration state (316) and incorporates the derived tasks into a first run configuration plan (318). To derive the configuration tasks, the hybrid configuration engine 100 determines the difference between the desired state and the current state. The hybrid configuration engine 100 selects a sequence of configuration tasks to reach the desired state and incorporates the selected configuration tasks into a configuration plan. Once the first run configuration plan has been established, the hybrid configuration engine 100 performs the specified configuration tasks. After completing the first run configuration plan, the hybrid configuration engine 100 informs the administrator 120 about additional manual configuration steps (316) to be completed in order to finalize configuration (320) of the on-premise solution 106 and the cloud-based solution 108 for hybrid deployment. In some embodiments, the information is provided in a summary screen displayed by the hybrid configuration engine 100. In other embodiments, the hybrid configuration engine 100 provides links to instructions and other helpful information the information also describes how the administrator can test ( e.g., end user based tests) to ensure that the hybrid deployment and/or a portion thereof is working. See Also ¶0028, ¶0032).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Sears in view of Behrendt to include the teachings of Nelson. The motivation for doing so is to allow the system to reduce the complexity and burden of configuring rich coexistence between an on-premise solution and a cloud-based solution (Nelson – Abstract).
Conclusion
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 YOUNES NAJI whose telephone number is (571)272-2659. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday 8:30 AM -5:30 PM.
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/YOUNES NAJI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2445
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