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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 01/13/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
This office action is responsive to amendment filed on 01/13/2026. The Examiner has acknowledged the amended claims 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, and 16 have been amended. Claims 21-23 have been canceled. New claims 24-26 have been added. Claims 1-4,6-11,13-18 and 24-26 have been presented for examination and are rejected.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's argument, filed on 01/13/2026 has been entered and carefully considered.
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1-4,6-11,13-18 and 24-26 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground of rejection necessitated by Applicant's amendment.
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 of this title, 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 1-3, 8-10, 15-17 and 24-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (CN 110233875 hereinafter Liu) in view of Skene et al. (US 9729581 hereinafter Skene).
With respect to claims 1, 8 and 15 , Liu teaches a data processing method, wherein the method is applied to a storage system in which storage and computing are decoupled, the storage system comprises a computing cluster and a storage cluster, the method is performed by a computing node in the computing cluster (Liu, see page 2, paragraph [0010] FIG. 1, may include a service system of the service layer, object storage gateway pool associated with the business system, and a plurality of storage clusters (i.e., one or more storage cluster). Wherein, the service system may be used to receive a data processing request sent by the client terminal (i.e., interpreted as being equivalent computing node) of the user, the data processing request can be performing the designated operation to the object in a certain storage cluster), and the method comprises:
receiving a data processing request, wherein the data processing request indicates to process a file (Liu, see page 1, paragraph[0007,0009] a request receiving unit for receiving the data processing request sent by the client; said data processing request carries the cluster identification of target storage cluster, gateway. Paragraph [0017] further discloses FIG. 1, may include a service system of the service layer, object storage gateway pool associated with the business system, and a plurality of storage clusters. wherein, the service system may be used to receive a data processing request sent by the client terminal (i.e., interpreted as being equivalent computing node) of the user, the data processing request can be performing the designated operation to the object (.e., equivalent file to being performed) in a certain storage cluster. The specified operation may comprise, for example, new object in the storage cluster, modifying object, deleting the object, and so on. (.e., interpreted as being equivalent process a file));
sending the data processing request to the first gateway device, wherein the first gateway device forwards the data processing request to a storage node in the storage cluster to complete the processing of the file (Liu, see page1, paragraphs [0007-0009] request transmitting unit for transmitting the data processing request storage gateway sends to the target object so that the target object storage gateway transmits the data processing request to said target storage cluster).
Liu yet fails to disclose determining a first gateway device from a plurality of gateway devices in the storage cluster based on a target index that is obtained by performing a modulo operation on a hash value of the file and a quantity of the plurality of gateway devices; and
However, Skene discloses determining a first gateway device from a plurality of gateway devices in the storage cluster based on a target index that is obtained by performing a modulo operation on a hash value of the file and a quantity of the plurality of gateway devices(Skene, see Col. 28, lines 22-31, the target gateway key may be generated using various hashing functions, or the like, that may be arranged to generate a key that may be used as an index to select a particular target gateway computer. For example, the target gateway key value may be treated as an integer so modulo arithmetic may be employed to provide an index to a particular target gateway computer. (E.g., Gateway Computer Index=hash(key-data) modulo number-of-target-gateway-computers-in-cluster)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to combine the teaching of Liu with the teaching of Skene to provide the method in determining a gateway device for a file by performing a modulo operation on its hash value in a storage cluster provides several advantages including uniform load balancing by preventing a single gateway from becoming a bottleneck while others are idle, and fast, real-time routing decisions in distributed systems improve performance, reliability, and efficiency by enabling rapid adaptation to changes, minimizing latency, and reducing single points of failure, leading to benefits like lower costs, better resource use, and enhanced user experience.
With respect to claims 2, 9 and 16, Liu-Skene teaches the method,
wherein correspondences between the plurality of gateway devices and indexes are recorded in the computing node, and each gateway device in the plurality of gateway devices corresponds to one index, and wherein the determining a first gateway device from a plurality of gateway devices in the storage cluster comprises:
performing hash calculation on an identifier of the file carried in the data processing request, to obtain the hash value of the file ( Skene, see Col. 28, lines 26-31, the target gateway key may be generated using various hashing functions, or the like, that may be arranged to generate a key that may be used as an index to select a particular target gateway computer. For example, the target gateway key value may be treated as an integer so modulo arithmetic may be employed to provide an index to a particular target gateway computer. (E.g., Gateway Computer Index=hash(key-data) modulo number-of-target-gateway-computers-in-cluster);
obtaining a target index based on the hash value and the quantity of the plurality of gateway devices (Skene, see Col. 25, lines 32-37, Skene, see Col. 28, lines 22-31, the GID of the target gateway is actually associated with a group of gateway computers rather than a single gateway computer, the traffic management device may select a particular gateway computer in the group based on one or more rule-based policies. Col. 28, lines 22-26, further discloses the target gateway key may be generated using various hashing functions, or the like, that may be arranged to generate a key that may be used as an index to select a particular target gateway computer); and
determining, based on the correspondences between the plurality of gateway devices and the indexes, a gateway device that is in the plurality of gateway devices and that corresponds to the target index as the first gateway device (Skene, see Col. 28, lines 57-63,a target gateway device may be determined based on a previous association with a target gateway key. In at least one of the various embodiments, the target gateway network address/identity may be obtained from a list, table (i.e., index), database, or the like, that associates the target gateway key with information regarding the network address/identity of the target gateway computer).
With respect to claims 3, 10 and 17, Liu-Skene teaches the method, wherein the correspondences between the plurality of gateway devices and the indexes comprise an identifier of each gateway device in the plurality of gateway devices and an index corresponding to each gateway device in the plurality of gateway devices (Skene, see Col. 5, lines 24-26, the source gateway may be arranged to provide a gateway identifier (GID) that may be associated with one or more target gateways that may be associated with the target node. Col. 24, lines 59-63, further discloses a gateway computer may have access to an index that maps nodes to their respective gateway computers. The management platform server computer may provide the index information to one or more of the gateway computers), and
the identifier of each gateway device comprises an internet protocol (IP) address of each gateway device (Skene, see Col. 5, lines 27-42, the source gateway may be arranged to embed marker information that includes at least a portion of the GID in the communication. In some embodiments, providing the gateway key may include providing tuple information that may be associated with the communication and including the tuple information and the marker information in the gateway key. … the marker information may be embedded in the security parameters index field of an Internet Protocol Security (IPSEC) packet. Col. 8, lines 38-43, further discloses remote computers and other related electronic devices could be remotely connected to either LANs or WANs via a modem and temporary telephone link. In one embodiment, network 110 may be configured to transport information of an Internet Protocol (IP)).
With respect to claims 24, 25 and 26, Liu-Skene teaches the method, yet fails to disclose further comprising: storing a gateway mapping table, wherein the correspondences between the plurality of gateway devices and the indexes are recorded in the gateway mapping table (Skene, see Col. 24, lines 50-67, a gateway ID (GID) may be provided for the target gateway computer, each gateway computer in an industrial network may be arranged to have a map of each node computer and their associated gateway computer. Accordingly, the gateway computer that receives the communication from the source node may be arranged to lookup the GID for the ‘target’ gateway computer that may be associated with the target node computer. For example, a gateway computer may have access to an index that maps nodes to their respective gateway computers. Col. 25, lines 5-9, further discloses the information, including maps, indexes, lists, or the like, that may be used to provide the network address that is associated with the target gateway computer may be provided by the management platform server computer for the network).
Claims 4, 11 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (CN 110233875 hereinafter Liu) in view of Skene et al. (US 9729581 hereinafter Skene) further in view of Mari et al. (US 20130185536 hereinafter Mari).
With respect to claims 4, 11 and 18, Liu-Skene teaches the method, wherein the target index is a quantity of the plurality of gateway devices (Skene, see Col. 28, lines 22-31, the target gateway key may be generated using various hashing functions, or the like, that may be arranged to generate a key that may be used as an index to select a particular target gateway computer),
Liu-Skene yet fails to disclose wherein the target index is a remainder of the hash value.
However, Mari discloses wherein the target index is a remainder of the hash value(Mari, see FIG. 6A and paragraph [0044] hash table header array 620 is provided as an index into the stack, and includes entry positions 0 to 4090, in the example provided herein. Thus, entry position 0 corresponds to a hash value (or a remainder value) of 0, entry position 1 corresponds to a hash value (or a reminder value) of 1, entry position 2 corresponds to a hash value of 2, etc.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to combine the teaching of Liu-Skene with the teaching of Mari to provide a hashing-based management-protocol is implemented in connection with a stack, which contains storage-identities of the pool. Using the remainder of a hash value to determine the target index provides several critical advantages in computing, primarily focused on efficiency, scalability, and data distribution.
Claims 5, 12 and 19 (canceled).
Claims 6-7, 12-14 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liu et al. (CN 110233875 hereinafter Liu) in view of Skene et al. (US 9729581 hereinafter Skene) further in view of Zhu et al. (WO 2020030000 hereinafter Zhu).
With respect to claims 6, 13 and 20, Liu-Skene teaches the method, yet fails to disclose wherein before the determining a first gateway device from a plurality of gateway devices in the storage cluster, the method further comprises:
obtaining, from a monitoring node in the storage cluster, a status of each gateway device in the storage cluster, wherein the status comprises any one of an idle state, a busy state, or a faulty state; and determining, based on the status of each gateway device in the storage cluster, the plurality of gateway devices in the idle state
However, Zhu discloses wherein before the determining a first gateway device from a plurality of gateway devices in the storage cluster, the method further comprises:
obtaining, from a monitoring node in the storage cluster, a status of each gateway device in the storage cluster (Zhu, see paragraphs [0006-0008] the control device acquires the status of the first gateway, and when the status of the first gateway indicates that the network of the site to which the first gateway belongs is faulty, the control device may delete Is associated with a second gateway; wherein the first gateway and the second gateway are located in different sites, respectively),
wherein the status comprises any one of an idle state, a busy state, or a faulty state (Zhu, see paragraphs [0051-0060] in step S101, the first gateway may periodically or in real time monitor the status of the first gateway (specifically, the status of the network exit) to determine whether the network of the first site where the first gateway is located is faulty. There are multiple ways to monitor the status of the gateway. For example, the first gateway sends a probe message to a preset device. If no response message is received within a period of time, the status of the first gateway can be determined to be a fault state. The fault state is used to indicate that a fault occurs in the network of the first site); and
determining, based on the status of each gateway device in the storage cluster, the plurality of gateway devices in the idle state (status comprises any one of an idle state, a busy state, or a faulty state (Zhu, see paragraphs [0051-0060] determined that the state of the first gateway is a normal state, and the normal state is used to indicate that the network of the first site is not faulty. For another example, the first gateway may periodically send a probe message to a preset device, and determine the state of the first gateway by detecting the number of times a response message is received, etc.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was effectively filed to combine the teaching of Liu-Skene with the teaching of Zhu to provide a method for obtaining the status of each gateway device (idle, busy, or faulty) from a monitoring node in a storage cluster provides comprehensive, real-time visibility into the health and performance of the storage infrastructure. This proactive monitoring ensures high availability and optimizes workload distribution, allowing administrators to manage resources effectively and prevent service disruptions before they impact users.
With respect to claims 7 and 14, Liu-Skene teaches the method, wherein the sending comprises:
sending the data processing request to the second gateway device, wherein the second gateway device forwards the data processing request to the storage node in the storage cluster to complete the processing of the file (Liu, see paragraphs [0008-0009] provides a data processing method of service system, the service system gateway pool associated with the object storage, the method comprising: receiving a data processing request sent by the client; said data processing request carries the cluster identifier of the target storage cluster, collecting each of the objects stored in the storage gateway pool load information of the gateway, and based on the load information, from the respective object storage gateway determines the target object storage gateway; the said data processing request storage gateway sends to the target object so that the target object storage gateway transmits the data processing request to said target storage cluster. …request transmitting unit for transmitting the data processing request storage gateway sends to the target object so that the target object storage gateway transmits the data processing request to said target storage cluster).
Liu-Skene yet fails to disclose wherein the sending comprises:
in response to the first gateway device being in a busy state or a faulty state, determining, based on recorded statuses of the plurality of gateway devices, a second gateway device from the plurality of gateway devices, wherein the second gateway device is any one gateway device that is in the plurality of gateway devices and that is in an idle state.
However, Zhu discloses wherein the sending comprises:
in response to the first gateway device being in a busy state or a faulty state, determining, based on recorded statuses of the plurality of gateway devices, a second gateway device from the plurality of gateway devices, wherein the second gateway device is any one gateway device that is in the plurality of gateway devices and that is in an idle state(Zhu, see paragraphs [0006-0008] the control device acquires the status of the first gateway, and when the status of the first gateway indicates that the network of the site to which the first gateway belongs is faulty, the control device may delete Is associated with a second gateway; wherein the first gateway and the second gateway are located in different sites, respectively. Paragraphs [0051-0060] further discloses in step S101, the first gateway may periodically or in real time monitor the status of the first gateway (specifically, the status of the network exit) to determine whether the network of the first site where the first gateway is located is faulty. There are multiple ways to monitor the status of the gateway. For example, the first gateway sends a probe message to a preset device. If no response message is received within a period of time, the status of the first gateway can be determined to be a fault state. The fault state is used to indicate that a fault occurs in the network of the first site. Otherwise, it may be determined that the state of the first gateway is a normal state, and the normal state is used to indicate that the network of the first site is not faulty. For another example, the first gateway may periodically send a probe message to a preset device, and determine the state of the first gateway by detecting the number of times a response message is received, etc.).
Same motivation as claim 6.
Claims 21, 22 and 23 (canceled).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. This includes:
PG. Pub. US 20150263899 Logical network system, has virtualized containers performing self-advertisement to external router as next hop for packets entering logical network such that external router uses equal-cost multi-path forwarding to distribute packets.
PG. Pub. US 20150263946 Network control system for operating logical networks, has virtualized containers peers with physical router in external network in order to advertise addresses of virtual machines to physical router.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892 Notice of References Cited.
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01/30/2026
/ELIZABETH KASSA/Examiner, Art Unit 2457
/ARIO ETIENNE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2457