DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the communication received on 10/23/2025. Claims 1-20 are pending and have been examined.
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.
Claims 1-2, 5-6, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouzour et al. (US 20220164335 A1) in view of Beardsley et al. (US 20120151148 A1) in view of Solan et al. (US 20210234671 A1) in view of Chen et al. (US 20130290636 A1).
As per claim 1,
A computing system comprising: a processor system; and a memory that stores computer-executable instructions that are executable by the processor system to at least: [Abouzour teaches a system comprising computing components and program stored in non-transitory computer readable media executed by processing units (para. 31, 47)] read blocks of first data from a block storage, which is incapable of ensuring that files are stored in a designated order, during a user session of a user; [Users/clients may access the system and read pages of data from persisted storage, such as an object store containing pages stored as objects, into a buffer pool (para. 24, 34-35; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs; see para. 33 providing persisted storage including object store (block storage); see para. 34 providing for a client issuing queries to be executed (i.e. during a user session))] write pages of second data to a page storage, which is capable of ensuring that files are stored in the designated order, during the user session, the pages of the second data indicating changes to be made with regard to at least a subset of the blocks of the first data in the block storage; and [The pages in the buffer pool can be modified and new pages can also be created in the buffer pool, wherein the pages including dirty pages (indicating changes to be made) are flushed to persistent storage such as the object store (para. 35-37, 44, 55, 57; figs. 1, 3, 4-7 and associated paragraphs)] transfer the pages of the second data from the page storage to the block storage by converting the pages of the second data, which are configured to have a page format associated with the page storage, to page-embedded blocks, which are configured to have a block format associated with the block storage. [The pages being flushed to the object store are encrypted (block format) and stored as new objects (page-embedded blocks) (para. 35-37, 44, 55, 94-95; figs. 1, 3, 4-7, 13 and associated paragraphs)]
Abouzour does not explicitly disclose, but Beardsley discloses:
at a time instance at which no pages are being written to the page storage, [Beardsley teaches destaging data from a write cache to memory (para. 15-16; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs), the destaging occurring responsive to a flag count associated with the cache being zero, the flag being incremented/decremented responsive to the cache being written to or not being written to (para. 30, 34-38; figs. 2-3 and associated paragraphs)]
Abouzour and Beardsley are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the disclosures provided by Abouzour with Beardsley’s disclosures directed towards flushing data to memory based on a determination associated with instances of host data not being written. Doing so would allow for avoiding destaging conflicts (para. 4).
Abouzour in view of Beardsley does not explicitly disclose, but Solan discloses:
, which is incapable of ensuring that files are stored in a designated order, [Solan teaches that an object storage environment may involve storage of an unordered set of items having no particular order, arrangement, or location (para. 79)]
Abouzour, Beardsley, and Solan are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley, and Solan, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley to include disclosures by Solan since they both teach data storage, wherein Solan is directed towards improved efficiency of object storage (para. 13-17). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (object storage storing items without particular order, arrangement, or location) to a known device (system utilizing an object store for storing data) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (system utilizing an object store for storing data, the object store storing objects without particular order, arrangement, or location to provide for improved scalability). MPEP 2143
Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan does not explicitly disclose, but Chen discloses:
, which is capable of ensuring that files are stored in the designated order, [Chen teaches a database buffer pool that may store pages of files in a sorted in order of recent access (para. 19-22)]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Solan, and Chen are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan and Chen, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan to include disclosures by Chen since they both teach data storage, wherein Chen is directed towards improved data access latency (para. 1). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (database buffer pool storing pages of files in a sorted order of recency of access) to a known device (system comprising a database having a buffer pool) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (storage system comprising a database having a buffer pool, the buffer pool storing pages of files in a sorter order of recency of access to provide for improved access latency). MPEP 2143
As per claim 2, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen teaches claim 1 as shown above and further teaches:
The system of claim 1, wherein the block storage is cloud-based and external to the computing system; and wherein the page storage is included in the computing system. [Abouzour teaches the object store to be cloud-based (para. 24); Abouzour teaches the database management system comprising the buffer pool may be implemented as a server, with the cloud-based object store being shown to be external to the server (para. 31; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs; see fig. 1 #110, 117, 130)]
As per claim 5, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen teaches claim 1 as shown above and further teaches:
The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions are executable by the processor system to: transfer subsets of the pages of the second data from the page storage to the block storage at respective periodic intervals during the user session. [Beardsley teaches destaging data from a write cache to memory (para. 15-16; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs), the destaging occurring responsive to a flag count associated with the cache being zero, the flag being incremented/decremented responsive to the cache being written to or not being written to (para. 30, 34-38; figs. 2-3 and associated paragraphs), where the flag may be decremented each second after the host has last written data (para. 26, 29, 35), where the instances of flushing being dependent on the regular countdown are necessarily occurring periodically]
Abouzour and Beardsley are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the disclosures provided by Abouzour with Beardsley’s disclosures directed towards flushing data to memory based on a determination associated with instances of host data not being written. Doing so would allow for avoiding destaging conflicts (para. 4).
As per claim 6, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen teaches claim 1 as shown above and further teaches:
The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions are executable by the processor system to: transfer the pages of the second data from the page storage to the block storage based at least on a designated amount of time passing since a most recent page of the second data is written to the page storage during the user session without another page being written to the block storage. [Beardsley teaches destaging data from a write cache to memory (para. 15-16; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs), the destaging occurring responsive to a flag count associated with the cache being zero, the flag being incremented/decremented responsive to the cache being written to or not being written to (para. 30, 34-38; figs. 2-3 and associated paragraphs), where the flag may be decremented each second after the host has last written data (para. 26, 29, 35)]
Abouzour and Beardsley are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the disclosures provided by Abouzour with Beardsley’s disclosures directed towards flushing data to memory based on a determination associated with instances of host data not being written. Doing so would allow for avoiding destaging conflicts (para. 4).
As per claim 20,
A computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium having instructions recorded thereon for enabling a processor-based system to perform operations, the operations comprising: [Abouzour teaches a system comprising computing components and program stored in non-transitory computer readable media executed by processing units (para. 31, 47)] reading blocks of first data from a block storage during a user session of a user; [Users/clients may access the system and read pages of data from persisted storage, such as an object store containing pages stored as objects, into a buffer pool (para. 24, 34-35; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs; see para. 33 providing persisted storage including object store (block storage); see para. 34 providing for a client issuing queries to be executed (i.e. during a user session))] writing pages of second data to a page storage during the user session, the pages of the second data indicating changes to be made with regard to at least a subset of the blocks of the first data in the block storage; and [The pages in the buffer pool can be modified and new pages can also be created in the buffer pool, wherein the pages including dirty pages (indicating changes to be made) are flushed to persistent storage such as the object store (para. 35-37, 44, 55, 57; figs. 1, 3, 4-7 and associated paragraphs)] transferring the pages of the second data from the page storage to the block storage by converting the pages of the second data, which are configured to have a page format associated with the page storage, to page-embedded blocks, which are configured to have a block format associated with the block storage. [The pages being flushed to the object store are encrypted (block format) and stored as new objects (page-embedded blocks) (para. 35-37, 44, 55, 94-95; figs. 1, 3, 4-7, 13 and associated paragraphs)]
Abouzour does not explicitly disclose, but Beardsley discloses:
at a time instance at which no pages are being written to the page storage, [Beardsley teaches destaging data from a write cache to memory (para. 15-16; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs), the destaging occurring responsive to a flag count associated with the cache being zero, the flag being incremented/decremented responsive to the cache being written to or not being written to (para. 30, 34-38; figs. 2-3 and associated paragraphs)]
Abouzour and Beardsley are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the disclosures provided by Abouzour with Beardsley’s disclosures directed towards flushing data to memory based on a determination associated with instances of host data not being written. Doing so would allow for avoiding destaging conflicts (para. 4).
Abouzour in view of Beardsley does not explicitly disclose, but Solan discloses:
, which is incapable of ensuring that files are stored in a designated order, [Solan teaches that an object storage environment may involve storage of an unordered set of items having no particular order, arrangement, or location (para. 79)]
Abouzour, Beardsley, and Solan are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley, and Solan, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley to include disclosures by Solan since they both teach data storage, wherein Solan is directed towards improved efficiency of object storage (para. 13-17). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (object storage storing items without particular order, arrangement, or location) to a known device (system utilizing an object store for storing data) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (system utilizing an object store for storing data, the object store storing objects without particular order, arrangement, or location to provide for improved scalability). MPEP 2143
Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan does not explicitly disclose, but Chen discloses:
, which is capable of ensuring that files are stored in the designated order, [Chen teaches a database buffer pool that may store pages of files in a sorted in order of recent access (para. 19-22)]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Solan, and Chen are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan and Chen, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan to include disclosures by Chen since they both teach data storage, wherein Chen is directed towards improved data access latency (para. 1). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (data buffer pool storing pages of files in a sorted order of recency of access) to a known device (system comprising a database having a buffer pool) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (storage system comprising a database having a buffer pool, the buffer pool storing pages of files in a sorter order of recency of access to provide for improved access latency). MPEP 2143
Claims 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouzour et al. (US 20220164335 A1) in view of Beardsley et al. (US 20120151148 A1) in view of Solan et al. (US 20210234671 A1) in view of Chen et al. (US 20130290636 A1) in view of Jin et al. (US 20210318820 A1).
As per claim 3, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen teaches claim 1 as shown above; it does not explicitly disclose, but Jin discloses:
The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions are executable by the processor system to: read the blocks of the first data from a first container in the block storage; and transfer the pages of the second data from the page storage to a second container in the block storage, wherein the first container and the second container are mutually exclusive. [Where Abouzour in view of Beardley in view of Solan in view of Chen as shown above teaches storing second data to persisted storage and reading first data from the persisted storage, Jin discloses a device comprising a buffer zone (such as an SLC zone) onto which write data is initially written and a separate data zone (para. 37-39, 49), where it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the arts, provided with disclosures of Abouzour in view of Beardley in view of Solan in view of Chen, providing for writing second data and reading first data from a storage, with disclosures by Jin, providing for a specified buffer region for storing write data, to provide for a combination where the second data is written to the buffer region while the first data is read from a region different from the buffer region in order to provide for greater flexibility and speed of data writes]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Solan, Chen, and Jin are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen and Jin, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen to include disclosures by Jin since they both teach data storage, wherein Jin is directed towards improved flexibility in data writes (para. 8). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (storage having designated buffer region for write data) to a known device (system for reading first data from storage and writing second data to storage) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (system for reading first data from storage and writing second data to storage, wherein the second data is written to a buffer region specified to store data, different from the region containing the first data, in order to provide for greater flexibility and speed of data writes). MPEP 2143
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouzour et al. (US 20220164335 A1) in view of Beardsley et al. (US 20120151148 A1) in view of Solan et al. (US 20210234671 A1) in view of Chen et al. (US 20130290636 A1) in view of Yardley (US 20080040484 A1).
As per claim 4, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen teaches claim 1 as shown above; it does not explicitly disclose, but Yardley discloses:
The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions are executable by the processor system to: transfer the pages of the second data from the page storage to the block storage based at least on the user session ending. [Where Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen as shown above teaches writing data to buffer pool and to persistent storage, Yardley teaches, in association with a user logging off of a system, storing information associated with the user session from a cache to persistent storage (para. 27-28; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs)]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Solan, Chen, and Yardley are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen and Yardley, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen to include disclosures by Yardley since they both teach data storage, wherein Yardley is directed towards improved preservation of user session states (para. 4-6). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (storing information associated with a user session from a cache to persistent storage upon a user logging off) to a known device (system for caching write data to a buffer pool and storing the data in persistent storage) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (system for caching write data to a buffer pool and storing the data in persistent storage responsive to the user logging off the system in order to provide for improved preservation of user data). MPEP 2143
Claims 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouzour et al. (US 20220164335 A1) in view of Beardsley et al. (US 20120151148 A1) in view of Solan et al. (US 20210234671 A1) in view of Chen et al. (US 20130290636 A1) in view of Eilam (US 9367337 B1) in view of Yardley (US 20080040484 A1).
As per claim 7, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen teaches claim 1 as shown above; it does not explicitly disclose, but Eilam discloses:
The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions are executable by the processor system to: transfer the pages of the second data from the page storage to the block storage to provide a current state of the block storage associated with the user session; [Where Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen teaches storing data to persisted cloud storage as shown above (see claim 1), Eilam teaches a cloud based server accessed by a plurality of users which maintains any changes made by a user and snapshots of a particular user session at various points in time (col. 3, lines 52-61; col. 4, lines 40-60; figs. 1-2 and associated paragraphs)] receive a user-initiated instruction, which indicates that a state of the block storage is to revert from the current state to a previous state associated with a previous user session of the user; and based at least on receipt of the user-initiated instruction, change the state of the block storage from the current state to the previous state by deleting the page-embedded blocks from the block storage. [Responsive to a rollback request, a particular timeframe for the rollback may be specified for restoring the user session to the specified timeframe (col. 5, lines 1-32); where it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the arts, provided with disclosures of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen providing for storing data in a remote storage and disclosures of Eilam providing for rolling back state of user session in a remote server to a specified timeframe, to provide for a combination where rolling back the state of a user session may include removing stored data not included in the state corresponding to the specified timeframe in order to provide for more flexible management of remote storage devices]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Solan, Chen, and Eilam are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the disclosures provided by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen with Eilam’s disclosures directed towards rolling back user session of a remote server to a specified timeframe. Doing so would allow providing a consistent level of service to a user in spite of corruption or damage (col. 5, lines 9-18).
Where Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen in view of Eilam does not specifically recite a previous user session, Yardley teaches:
associated with a previous user session of the user [Yardley teaches, in association with a user logging off of a system, storing information associated with the user session from a cache to persistent storage (para. 27-28; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs); it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the arts to have combined the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen in view of Eilam providing for maintaining user session state at different time frames of a user session with Yardley’s disclosure providing for saving user session information upon a user logoff, to provide for a combination where the timeframes of user session states saved also include user session states relating to previous user sessions (i.e. the information saved at a previous logoffs) in order to provide for improved rollback capabilities]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Solan, Chen, Eilam, and Yardley are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen in view of Eilam and Yardley, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen in view of Eilam to include disclosures by Yardley since they both teach data storage, wherein Yardley is directed towards improved preservation of user session states (para. 4-6). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (storing information associated with a user session from a cache to persistent storage upon a user logging off) to a known device (system for saving state of user session in different time frames) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (system for saving state of user session in different time frames including those relating to previous session in order to provide for greater number of options for rollback). MPEP 2143
Claims 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouzour et al. (US 20220164335 A1) in view of Beardsley et al. (US 20120151148 A1) in view of Solan et al. (US 20210234671 A1) in view of Chen et al. (US 20130290636 A1) in view of Rosales et al. (US 20100017670 A1).
As per claim 9, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen teaches claim 1 as shown above; it does not explicitly disclose, but Rosale discloses:
The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions are executable by the processor system further to: determine that an error occurs with regard to an identified block, which is included in the blocks of the first data, in a first instance of the block storage that is included in a first data center; based at least on the error occurring with regard to the identified block in the first instance of the block storage in the first data center, access the blocks of the first data from a second instance of the block storage that is included in a second data center, which is different from the first data center; and access the page-embedded blocks from the first instance of the block storage in the first data center despite the error occurring with regard to the identified block in the first instance of the block storage in the first data center. [Rosales teaches fetching, from a server, backup data corresponding only to unreadable regions data of a user system, and, responsive to the data from the server also being unreadable, accessing additional backup servers until readable data has been located and downloaded (para. 12, 17); where, if a portion of the first data is unreadable, only the data corresponding to the unreadable data portion would necessarily be fetched from the additional backup servers.]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Solan, Chen, and Rosales are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen and Rosales, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen to include disclosures by Rosales since they both teach data storage, wherein Rosales is directed towards improved data retrieval (para. 2-4). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (fetching backup data corresponding only to the unreadable regions of data from a plurality of backup servers) to a known device (system comprising cloud storage for storing data objects) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (storage system configured to, responsive to certain data objects being unreadable by a client, providing the data objects corresponding to the unreadable data objects from other servers in order to provide greater reliability in data provisioning). MPEP 2143
As per claim 10, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen teaches claim 1 as shown above; it does not explicitly disclose, but Rosales discloses:
The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions are executable by the processor system further to: determine that an error occurs with regard to an identified block, which is included in the page-embedded blocks, in a first instance of the block storage that is included in a first data center; based at least on the error occurring with regard to the identified block in the first instance of the block storage in the first data center, access the page-embedded blocks from a second instance of the block storage that is included in a second data center, which is different from the first data center; and access the blocks of the first data from the first instance of the block storage in the first data center despite the error occurring with regard to the identified block in the first instance of the block storage in the first data center. [Rosales teaches fetching, from a server, backup data corresponding only to unreadable regions data of a user system, and, responsive to the data from the server also being unreadable, accessing additional backup servers until readable data has been located and downloaded (para. 12, 17); where, if a portion of the second data is unreadable, only the data corresponding to the unreadable data portion would necessarily be fetched from the additional backup servers.]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Solan, Chen, and Rosales are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen and Rosales, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen to include disclosures by Rosales since they both teach data storage, wherein Rosales is directed towards improved data retrieval (para. 2-4). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (fetching backup data corresponding only to the unreadable regions of data from a plurality of backup servers) to a known device (system comprising cloud storage for storing data objects) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (storage system configured to, responsive to certain data objects being unreadable by a client, providing the data objects corresponding to the unreadable data objects from other servers in order to provide greater reliability in data provisioning). MPEP 2143
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouzour et al. (US 20220164335 A1) in view of Beardsley et al. (US 20120151148 A1) in view of Solan et al. (US 20210234671 A1) in view of Chen et al. (US 20130290636 A1) in view of Kellmereit et al. (US 20160094665 A1).
As per claim 11, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen teaches claim 1 as shown above and further teaches:
The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-executable instructions are executable by the processor system further to: read the page-embedded blocks from the block storage during a second user session, which temporally follows the user session during which the page-embedded blocks are created from the pages of the second data, by converting the page-embedded blocks to second pages, which are configured to have the page format associated with the page storage. [Abouzour in view of Beardley in view of Solan in view of Chen teaches decrypting data being read from the object store (Abouzour: para. 95)]
Abouzour in view of Beardley in view of Solan in view of Chen does not explicitly disclose, but Kellmereit discloses:
read the page-embedded blocks from the block storage during a second user session, which temporally follows the user session during which the page-embedded blocks are created from the pages of the second data, [Kellmereit teaches, responsive to a read request by a client device following a write request by the client device, closing an existing session and opening a new session to ensure the write has been applied before being read (para. 11-14; 34-37; fig. 2 and associated paragraphs); Kellmereit also teaches a scenario where, if a write request instead follows a read request, the existing session is reused without closing the session or opening a new session (para. 51); where it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the arts to have combined the disclosures by Kellmereit to provide for a configuration where a same session may be used for a write request following a read request, but a new session is to be created for a read request following a write request in order to ensure proper application of data writes before reads while additionally avoiding unnecessarily terminating/creation sessions in events where data has already been read prior to the subsequent write requests.]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Solan, Chen, and Kellmereit are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the disclosures provided by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Solan in view of Chen with Kellmereit’s disclosures directed towards determining to terminate a current session and initiate a user session based on the order of read and write requests issued by a client. Doing so would provide for improved data integrity by ensuring prior writes have been properly applied before server data is read (para. 11).
Claims 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouzour et al. (US 20220164335 A1) in view of Beardsley et al. (US 20120151148 A1) in view of Mehrotra et al. (US 20110145242 A1).
As per claim 12,
A method implemented by a computing system, the method comprising: reading blocks of first data from a block storage during a user session of a user; [Abouzour teaches a system comprising computing components and program stored in non-transitory computer readable media executed by processing units (para. 31, 47), wherein users/clients may access the system and read pages of data from persisted storage, such as an object store containing pages stored as objects, into a buffer pool (para. 24, 34-35; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs; see para. 33 providing persisted storage including object store (block storage); see para. 34 providing for a client issuing queries to be executed (i.e. during a user session))] writing pages of second data to a page storage during the user session, the pages of the second data indicating changes to be made with regard to at least a subset of the blocks of the first data in the block storage; and [The pages in the buffer pool can be modified and new pages can also be created in the buffer pool, wherein the pages including dirty pages (indicating changes to be made) are flushed to persistent storage such as the object store (para. 35-37, 44, 55, 57; figs. 1, 3, 4-7 and associated paragraphs)] transferring the pages of the second data from the page storage, which is reliant on a file system for storage of the pages of the second data in the page storage, to the block storage, which is non-reliant on the file system for storage of the pages of the second data in the block storage, by converting the pages of the second data, which are configured to have a page format associated with the page storage, to page-embedded blocks, which are configured to have a block format associated with the block storage. [The pages being flushed to the object store are encrypted (block format) and stored as new objects (page-embedded blocks) (para. 35-37, 44, 55, 94-95; figs. 1, 3, 4-7, 13 and associated paragraphs); Abouzour contrasts object stores from file-based stores and does not recite a requirement for the object store to be reliant on a file system for storing data (para. 4-5, 23-24, 27, 33, 36, 96)]
Abouzour does not explicitly disclose, but Beardsley discloses:
at a time instance at which no pages are being written to the page storage, [Beardsley teaches destaging data from a write cache to memory (para. 15-16; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs), the destaging occurring responsive to a flag count associated with the cache being zero, the flag being incremented/decremented responsive to the cache being written to or not being written to (para. 30, 34-38; figs. 2-3 and associated paragraphs)]
Abouzour and Beardsley are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the disclosures provided by Abouzour with Beardsley’s disclosures directed towards flushing data to memory based on a determination associated with instances of host data not being written. Doing so would allow for avoiding destaging conflicts (para. 4).
Abouzour in view of Beardsley does not explicitly disclose, but Mehrotra discloses:
, which is reliant on a file system for storage of the pages of the second data in the page storage,
[Where Abouzour teaches the buffer pool may cache data, comprises a portion of a relational database, and is associated with a system catalog (para. 32, 39-43; figs. 1-2 and associated paragraphs), Mehrotra teaches a relational database comprises a cache filesystem containing system catalog data files (para. 16, 23; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs)]
Abouzour, Beardsley, and Mehrotra are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley, and Mehrotra, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley to include disclosures by Mehrotra since they both teach data storage, wherein Mehrotra is directed towards improvements in database management (para. 1). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (relational database comprising a cache filesystem and system catalog data files) to a known device (system comprising relational database having a buffer pool usable for caching data) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (system comprising relational database having a buffer pool usable for caching data, the relational database utilizing cache filesystem and file system catalog files in order to provide for improved organization of data in the buffer pool). MPEP 2143
As per claim 13, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra teaches claim 12 as shown above and further teaches:
13. The method of claim 12, wherein reading the blocks of the first data comprises: reading the blocks of the first data from the block storage, which is cloud-based and external to the computing system; and wherein writing the pages of the second data comprises: writing the pages of the second data to the page storage, which is included in the computing system. [Abouzour teaches the object store to be cloud-based (para. 24); Abouzour teaches the database management system comprising the buffer pool may be implemented as a server, with the cloud-based object store being shown to be external to the server (para. 31; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs; see fig. 1 #110, 117, 130)]
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouzour et al. (US 20220164335 A1) in view of Beardsley et al. (US 20120151148 A1) in view of Mehrotra et al. (US 20110145242 A1) in view of Jin et al. (US 20210318820 A1).
As per claim 14, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra teaches claim 12 as shown above; it does not explicitly disclose, but Jin discloses:
The method of claim 12, wherein reading the blocks of the first data comprises: reading the blocks of the first data from a first container in the block storage; and wherein transferring the pages of the second data comprises: transferring the pages of the second data from the page storage to a second container in the block storage, wherein the first container and the second container are mutually exclusive. [Where Abouzour in view of Beardley in view of Mehrotra as shown above teaches storing second data to persisted storage and reading first data from the persisted storage, Jin discloses a device comprising a buffer zone (such as an SLC zone) onto which write data is initially written and a separate data zone (para. 37-39, 49), where it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the arts, provided with disclosures of Abouzour in view of Beardley in view of Mehrotra, providing for writing second data and reading first data from a storage, with disclosures by Jin, providing for a specified buffer region for storing write data, to provide for a combination where the second data is written to the buffer region while the first data is read from a region different from the buffer region in order to provide for greater flexibility and speed of data writes]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Mehrotra, and Jin are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra and Jin, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra to include disclosures by Jin since they both teach data storage, wherein Jin is directed towards improved flexibility in data writes (para. 8). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (storage having designated buffer region for write data) to a known device (system for reading first data from storage and writing second data to storage) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (system for reading first data from storage and writing second data to storage, wherein the second data is written to a buffer region specified to store data, different from the region containing the first data, in order to provide for greater flexibility and speed of data writes). MPEP 2143
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouzour et al. (US 20220164335 A1) in view of Beardsley et al. (US 20120151148 A1) in view of Mehrotra et al. (US 20110145242 A1) in view of Eilam (US 9367337 B1) in view of Yardley (US 20080040484 A1).
As per claim 15, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra teaches claim 12 as shown above; it does not explicitly disclose, but Eilam discloses:
The method of claim 12, wherein transferring the pages of the second data from the page storage to the block storage provides a current state of the block storage associated with the user session; and wherein the method further comprises: [Where Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra teaches storing data to persisted cloud storage as shown above (see claim 12), Eilam teaches a cloud based server accessed by a plurality of users which maintains any changes made by a user and snapshots of a particular user session at various points in time (col. 3, lines 52-61; col. 4, lines 40-60; figs. 1-2 and associated paragraphs)] receiving a user-initiated instruction, which indicates that a state of the block storage is to revert from the current state to a previous state associated with a previous user session of the user; andbased at least on receipt of the user-initiated instruction, changing the state of the block storage from the current state to the previous state by deleting the page-embedded blocks from the block storage. [Responsive to a rollback request, a particular timeframe for the rollback may be specified for restoring the user session to the specified timeframe (col. 5, lines 1-32); where it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the arts, provided with disclosures of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra providing for storing data in a remote storage and disclosures of Eilam providing for rolling back state of user session in a remote server to a specified timeframe, to provide for a combination where rolling back the state of a user session may include removing stored data not included in the state corresponding to the specified timeframe in order to provide for more flexible management of remote storage devices]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Mehrotra, and Eilam are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the disclosures provided by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra with Eilam’s disclosures directed towards rolling back user session of a remote server to a specified timeframe. Doing so would allow providing a consistent level of service to a user in spite of corruption or damage (col. 5, lines 9-18).
Where Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra in view of Eilam does not specifically recite a previous user session, Yardley teaches:
associated with a previous user session of the user [Yardley teaches, in association with a user logging off of a system, storing information associated with the user session from a cache to persistent storage (para. 27-28; fig. 1 and associated paragraphs); it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the arts to have combined the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra in view of Eilam providing for maintaining user session state at different time frames of a user session with Yardley’s disclosure providing for saving user session information upon a user logoff, to provide for a combination where the timeframes of user session states saved also include user session states relating to previous user sessions (i.e. the information saved at a previous logoffs) in order to provide for improved rollback capabilities]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Mehrotra, Eilam, and Yardley are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra in view of Eilam and Yardley, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra in view of Eilam to include disclosures by Yardley since they both teach data storage, wherein Yardley is directed towards improved preservation of user session states (para. 4-6). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (storing information associated with a user session from a cache to persistent storage upon a user logging off) to a known device (system for saving state of user session in different time frames) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (system for saving state of user session in different time frames including those relating to previous session in order to provide for greater number of options for rollback). MPEP 2143
Claims 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouzour et al. (US 20220164335 A1) in view of Beardsley et al. (US 20120151148 A1) in view of Mehrotra et al. (US 20110145242 A1) in view of Rosales et al. (US 20100017670 A1).
As per claim 17, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra teaches claim 12 as shown above; it does not explicitly disclose, but Rosales discloses:
The method of claim 12, further comprising: determining that an error occurs with regard to an identified block, which is included in the blocks of the first data, in a first instance of the block storage that is included in a first data center; based at least on the error occurring with regard to the identified block in the first instance of the block storage in the first data center, accessing the blocks of the first data from a second instance of the block storage that is included in a second data center, which is different from the first data center; andaccessing the page-embedded blocks from the first instance of the block storage in the first data center despite the error occurring with regard to the identified block in the first instance of the block storage in the first data center.
[Rosales teaches fetching, from a server, backup data corresponding only to unreadable regions data of a user system, and, responsive to the data from the server also being unreadable, accessing additional backup servers until readable data has been located and downloaded (para. 12, 17); where, if a portion of the first data is unreadable, only the data corresponding to the unreadable data portion would necessarily be fetched from the additional backup servers.]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Mehrotra, Rosales are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra and Rosales, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra to include disclosures by Rosales since they both teach data storage, wherein Rosale is directed towards improved data retrieval (para. 2-4). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (fetching backup data corresponding only to the unreadable regions of data from a plurality of backup servers) to a known device (system comprising cloud storage for storing data objects) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (storage system configured to, responsive to certain data objects being unreadable by a client, providing the data objects corresponding to the unreadable data objects from other servers in order to provide greater reliability in data provisioning). MPEP 2143
As per claim 18, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra teaches claim 12 as shown above; it does not explicitly disclose, but Rosales discloses:
The method of claim 12, further comprising: determining that an error occurs with regard to an identified block, which is included in the page-embedded blocks, in a first instance of the block storage that is included in a first data center; based at least on the error occurring with regard to the identified block in the first instance of the block storage in the first data center, accessing the page-embedded blocks from a second instance of the block storage that is included in a second data center, which is different from the first data center; and accessing the blocks of the first data from the first instance of the block storage in the first data center despite the error occurring with regard to the identified block in the first instance of the block storage in the first data center. [Rosales teaches fetching, from a server, backup data corresponding only to unreadable regions data of a user system, and, responsive to the data from the server also being unreadable, accessing additional backup servers until readable data has been located and downloaded (para. 12, 17); where, if a portion of the second data is unreadable, only the data corresponding to the unreadable data portion would necessarily be fetched from the additional backup servers.]
Abouzour, Beardsley, Mehrotra, Rosales are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having knowledge of Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra and Rosales, to modify the disclosures by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra to include disclosures by Rosales since they both teach data storage, wherein Rosales is directed towards improved data retrieval (para. 2-4). Therefore, it would be applying a known technique (fetching backup data corresponding only to the unreadable regions of data from a plurality of backup servers) to a known device (system comprising cloud storage for storing data objects) ready for improvement to yield predictable results (storage system configured to, responsive to certain data objects being unreadable by a client, providing the data objects corresponding to the unreadable data objects from other servers in order to provide greater reliability in data provisioning). MPEP 2143
Claims 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouzour et al. (US 20220164335 A1) in view of Beardsley et al. (US 20120151148 A1) in view of Mehrotra et al. (US 20110145242 A1) in view of Kellmereit et al. (US 20160094665 A1).
As per claim 19, Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra teaches claim 12 as shown above and further teaches:
The method of claim 12, further comprising: reading the page-embedded blocks from the block storage during a second user session, which temporally follows the user session during which the page-embedded blocks are created from the pages of the second data, by converting the page-embedded blocks to second pages, which are configured to have the page format associated with the page storage. [Abouzour in view of Beardley in view of Mehrotra teaches decrypting data being read from the object store (Abouzour: para. 95)]
Abouzour in view of Beardley in view of Mehrotra does not explicitly disclose, but Kellmereit discloses:
reading the page-embedded blocks from the block storage during a second user session, which temporally follows the user session during which the page-embedded blocks are created from the pages of the second data, [Kellmereit teaches, responsive to a read request by a client device following a write request by the client device, closing an existing session and opening a new session to ensure the write has been applied before being read (para. 11-14; 34-37; fig. 2 and associated paragraphs); Kellmereit also teaches a scenario where, if a write request instead follows a read request, the existing session is reused without closing the session or opening a new session (para. 51); where it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the arts to have combined the disclosures by Kellmereit to provide for a configuration where a same session may be used for a write request following a read request, but a new session is to be created for a read request following a write request in order to ensure proper application of data writes before reads while additionally avoiding unnecessarily terminating/creation sessions in events where data has already been read prior to the subsequent write requests.]
Abouzour, Beardsley, in view of Mehrotra and Kellmereit are analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of endeavor involving data storage.
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have combined the disclosures provided by Abouzour in view of Beardsley in view of Mehrotra with Kellmereit’s disclosures directed towards determining to terminate a current session and initiate a user session based on the order of read and write requests issued by a client. Doing so would provide for improved data integrity by ensuring prior writes have been properly applied before server data is read (para. 11).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8 and 16 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.
With respect to claim 8, “… identify a first version of a container image that is associated with the user and a second version of the container image that is associated with a second user, the first version of the container image including the blocks of the first data and the page-embedded blocks, the second version of the container image including the blocks of the first data and second page-embedded blocks; and in lieu of storing an entirety of the first version of the container image and an entirety of the second version of the container image in the block storage, perform the following operations: store a single instance of the blocks of the first data in the block storage, wherein the single instance of the blocks of the first data is accessible by the user and by the second user; store the page-embedded blocks in the block storage, wherein the page-embedded blocks are accessible by the user and not by the second user; and store the second page-embedded blocks in the block storage, wherein the second page-embedded blocks are accessible by the second user and not by the user.” in conjunction with the other limitations of the claim and the limitations of the base claim, are not disclosed by the prior art of record.
The closest prior arts of record are Corrie (US 20210232345 A1), Agrawal (US 8849768 B1), Lewis et al. (US 9825958 B2), Balsal et al. (US 20200097198 A1), Schneider (US 9390101 B1)
Corrie teaches a container host system which opportunistically shares portions of container images. Agrawal teaches a user marking a file as likely to be duplicated on a plurality of computing devices. Lewis teaches comparing lists of authorized users for filtering out users authorized to access a content item. Bansal teaches a cloud-based backup having backup sets corresponding to respective clients. Schneider discloses clients comprising deduplication modules for determining whether a file has already been backed up.
However, the prior arts of record, neither individually nor in combination, teaches, in association the limitations of the base claim, identifying first and second versions of a container image associated with respective users, where the first and second versions comprise a same first data used for read operations but different second data that was transferred and converted from another storage, wherein a single instance of the first data is stored to be accessible by both users while separate instances of the different, second data are stored to be accessible by the respective associated user, but not by the other user.
Therefore, the prior arts of record, neither individually nor in combination disclose, in conjunction with the other limitations of the claim and the limitations of the base claim, the claim as a whole.
With respect to claim 16, “… identifying a first version of a container image that is associated with the user and a second version of the container image that is associated with a second user, the first version of the container image including the blocks of the first data and the page-embedded blocks, the second version of the container image including the blocks of the first data and second page- embedded blocks; and in lieu of storing an entirety of the first version of the container image and an entirety of the second version of the container image in the block storage, performing the following operations: storing a single instance of the blocks of the first data in the block storage, wherein the single instance of the blocks of the first data is accessible by the user and by the second user; storing the page-embedded blocks in the block storage, wherein the page- embedded blocks are accessible by the user and not by the second user; and storing the second page-embedded blocks in the block storage, wherein the second page-embedded blocks are accessible by the second user and not by the user.” in conjunction with the other limitations of the claim and the limitations of the base claim, are not disclosed by the prior art of record.
The closest prior arts of record are Corrie (US 20210232345 A1), Agrawal (US 8849768 B1), Lewis et al. (US 9825958 B2), Balsal et al. (US 20200097198 A1), Schneider (US 9390101 B1)
Corrie teaches a container host system which opportunistically shares portions of container images. Agrawal teaches a user marking a file as likely to be duplicated on a plurality of computing devices. Lewis teaches comparing lists of authorized users for filtering out users authorized to access a content item. Bansal teaches a cloud-based backup having backup sets corresponding to respective clients. Schneider discloses clients comprising deduplication modules for determining whether a file has already been backed up.
However, the prior arts of record, neither individually nor in combination, teaches, in association the limitations of the base claim, identifying first and second versions of a container image associated with respective users, where the first and second versions comprise a same first data used for read operations but different second data that was transferred and converted from another storage, wherein a single instance of the first data is stored to be accessible by both users while separate instances of the different, second data are stored to be accessible by the respective associated user, but not by the other user.
Therefore, the prior arts of record, neither individually nor in combination disclose, in conjunction with the other limitations of the claim and the limitations of the base claim, the claim as a whole.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection of claim 20 under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101 is withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection of the claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered. While the examiner respectfully notes, with respect to the remark on paragraph 3 of page labeled 16, that the object store of the Abouzour reference was considered to correspond to the block storage of the claim, the examiner nevertheless agrees that the independent claims 1, 12, and 20 as amended overcome prior arts of record as cited in the most recent previous office action. However, upon further consideration, a new ground of rejection is made in view of amendments to the claims and newly found prior arts.
Relevant Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Fuh et al. (US 20120221577 A1) discloses a buffer pool organizing data records in a manner similar to that used by a file system or an operating system.
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.
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/E.Y.K./Examiner, Art Unit 2135
/JARED I RUTZ/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2135