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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 05/07/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 1-12 are objected to because they include reference characters which are not enclosed within parentheses.
Reference characters, e.g. S100, S200, corresponding to elements recited in the detailed description of the drawings and used in conjunction with the recitation of the same element or group of elements in the claims should be enclosed within parentheses so as to avoid confusion with other numbers or characters which may appear in the claims. See MPEP § 608.01(m). Incorporation by reference to a specific limitation is permitted only when there is no practical way to define the invention in words and where it is more concise to incorporate by reference than duplicating a limitation into the claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter.
Claim 11 is drawn to a “system ... to perform a method,” wherein the system is not defined with structure/components that would preclude interpreting the system as software per se.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 8 recites the limitation "the n part of the health check" in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Regarding claim 8, the use of a narrow numerical range that falls within a broader range renders the boundaries of the claim not discernible. The phrase "preferably, and most preferably" renders the claim indefinite because it is unclear whether the preferred range is a limiting part of the claimed invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-4, 9-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Kaushik et al. (US 20220318107).
Regarding claim 1, Kaushik discloses a method for a hot standby concept in a redundant network system (multi-site distributed storage system 300 provides correctness of data, availability, and redundancy of data; [0047]), wherein the method comprises the steps of:
S110 establishing, by an application of a first node, a first connection to a resource component (clusters 310, 320, and the mediator 360 are coupled in communication (e.g., communications 340-342) via a network, which, depending upon the particular implementation, may be a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), or the Internet; [0045]);
S111 requesting, by the application of the first node, to start monitoring a first resource, wherein the first resource is part of the resource component (cluster 245 Application Programming Interface (API) 247; [0043].
active or passive access to virtual LUN causes read and write commands to be serviced only by node 311 (master); [0049]);
S112 receiving, by the application of the first node, an acceptance to monitor the first resource from the resource component, and setting the first node as an active node (The master is given preference to serve I/O operations to requesting clients; [0047]);
establishing, by an application of a second node, a second connection to the resource component (data centers 130 and 140, the mediator 120, and the computer system 110 are coupled in communication via a network 105; [0032]);
requesting, by the application of the second node, to start monitoring the first resource, receiving, by the application of a second node, the rejection to monitor the first resource from the resource component, and setting the second node as a standby node (rejecting I/O operations at the first cluster. At operation 618, the computer-implemented method includes draining inflight operations at the first cluster to ensure that both primary and mirror copies of CG1 and CG2 have consistent data; [0067]);
starting, by the application of the second node, a retry timer configured to request again to monitor the first resource, if the retry timer is expired (the multi-site distributed storage system (e.g., first cluster) starts a rollback timer. Expiration of this timer causes a fence (e.g., persistent fence at operation 620) to drop and allow I/O operations locally on the first cluster. This rollback timer provides non-disruptiveness from the consistency group of the first cluster before a role change operation (e.g., role change operation 624); [0066]);
releasing, by the resource component, the monitoring of the first resource from the application of the first node, if a failure in the first connection is detected (multi-site distributed storage system having the first and second clusters receives a failover start command and this initializes a starting state of a planned failover (PFO) feature. Draining inflight operations at the first cluster to ensure that both primary and mirror copies of CG1 and CG2 have consistent data. At operation 619, volumes of nodes of CG2 are changed from a read only state to a readable and writeable state. Also, at operation 619, the computer-implemented method converts CG2 from a slave role to a master role; [0066-0067]);
requesting, by the application of the second node, to monitor the first resource from the resource component, if the retry timer is expired, and receiving, by the application of a second node, the acceptance to monitor the first resource from the resource component and setting the second node as active node (Expiration of this timer causes a fence (e.g., persistent fence at operation 620) to drop and allow I/O operations locally on the first cluster. This rollback timer provides non-disruptiveness from the consistency group of the first cluster before a role change operation (e.g., role change operation 624). Rollback timer at the consistency group of the first cluster (CG1) will pre-empt the role change operation and allow I/O operations locally at CG1 thereby guaranteeing non-disruptiveness. This timer also enables making planned failover operation a time-bound operation by the way of setting the timer to a user defined value. If the steps leading to the role change operation take longer than the timeout, I/O commands will resume based on the timer expiry; [0066]).
Regarding claim 2, Kaushik discloses wherein the method comprising the steps of:
S200 receiving, by the application of the first node, a rejection to monitor the first resource from the resource component, if the first resource is already monitored, and setting the first node as a standby node (rejecting I/O operations at the first cluster. At operation 618, the computer-implemented method includes draining inflight operations at the first cluster to ensure that both primary and mirror copies of CG1 and CG2 have consistent data; [0067]);
S210 starting, by the application of the first node, a retry timer for periodically requesting to monitor the first resource of the resource component, in case the first resource is available for monitoring (the multi-site distributed storage system (e.g., first cluster) starts a rollback timer. Expiration of this timer causes a fence (e.g., persistent fence at operation 620) to drop and allow I/O operations locally on the first cluster. This rollback timer provides non-disruptiveness from the consistency group of the first cluster before a role change operation (e.g., role change operation 624); [0066]).
Regarding claim 3, Kaushik discloses wherein the method further comprises S300 sending, by the application of the first or the second node, a snapshot request to the resource component to receive a current status of one or more resource, in case the first or the second node is the active node (CGs may also be configured for use in connection with taking simultaneous snapshot images of multiple volumes, for example, to provide crash-consistent copies of a dataset associated with the volumes at a particular point in time. The level of granularity of operations supported by a CG is useful for various types of applications. As a non-limiting example, consider an application, such as a database application, that makes use of multiple volumes, including maintaining logs on one volume and the database on another volume; [0056]).
Regarding claim 4, Kaushik discloses wherein the method further comprises the steps:
S410 querying, by the application of the first node, the resource component if a second or any further resource is available for monitoring; S420 requesting, by the application of the first node, to monitor the second or any further resource (CGs may also be configured for use in connection with taking simultaneous snapshot images of multiple volumes, for example, to provide crash-consistent copies of a dataset associated with the volumes at a particular point in time. The level of granularity of operations supported by a CG is useful for various types of applications. As a non-limiting example, consider an application, such as a database application, that makes use of multiple volumes, including maintaining logs on one volume and the database on another volume; [0056]);
S430 generating an alarm, by the application of the first node, in case the request to monitor the second or any further resource is rejected by the resource component (the data center 810 rejects I/O operations and drains inflight operations to ensure that both primary and mirror copies of CG 815 and CG 855 have consistent matching content of data. A communication 892 is then sent from data center 810 to data center 850 and this causes volumes V3 and V4 of CG 855 to change from an initial read only state to a readable and writeable state; [0089]); and
repeating, by the application of the first node, the steps S410 to S430 until no further resource is available for monitoring and S440 ending the method, wherein the first node remains as active node (order of operations of a planned failover operation such that a primary copy of storage continues to serve I/O operations until a mirror copy is ready; (ii) guarantee non-disruptiveness during planned failover—in presence of various failures; (iii) persistently caching a consensus to avoid disruption even when connectivity to a mediator is disrupted; (iv) engaging filesystem persistent fence to reduce complexity of overall solution when dealing with controller reboots during planned failover; [0023]).
Regarding claim 9, Kaushik discloses wherein the resource is a conference call session, a video session, a contact center queue, a transaction queue, a hunt group (planned failover feature of a multi-site distributed storage system provides an order of operations such that a primary copy of a first data center continues to serve I/O operations until a mirror copy of a second data center is ready; [0018]).
Regarding claim 10, Kaushik discloses wherein the resource component is a communication and collaboration system, a communication platform, a business telephone system, a Private Branch Exchange, PBX, system, a media or content server, a contact center system, a transaction handler system (the multi-site distributed storage system 102 includes a data center 130, a data center 140, and optionally a mediator 120. The data centers 130 and 140, the mediator 120, and the computer system 110 are coupled in communication via a network 105, which, depending upon the particular implementation, may be a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), or the Internet; [0032]).
Regarding claim 11, the claims is interpreted and rejected for the reasons cited in claim 1.
Regarding claim 12, Kaushik discloses wherein the system comprises at least a first node and a second node; at least a first application and a second application; at least a resource component; and at least a resource to be monitored (the multi-site distributed storage system 102 includes a data center 130, a data center 140, and optionally a mediator 120. The data centers 130 and 140, the mediator 120, and the computer system 110 are coupled in communication via a network 105, which, depending upon the particular implementation, may be a Local Area Network (LAN), a Wide Area Network (WAN), or the Internet).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kaushik et al. (US 20220318107) in view of Macdonald et al. (US 20110099420).
Regarding claim 6, Kaushik does not expressly disclose wherein the method further comprises the steps: setting, by the application of the first, the second or any further node, a health check timer interval, in case the first, the second or any further node is the active node; sending, by the application of the active node, a health check message every n part of the health check time interval to the resource component, wherein the health check message comprises the health check timer interval; and setting, by the resource component, upon receiving the health check message a health check timer according to the received health check timer interval from the application of the active node.
In an analogous art, Macdonald discloses wherein the method further comprises the steps:
setting, by the application of the first, the second or any further node, a health check timer interval, in case the first, the second or any further node is the active node (monitoring component can monitor the health of the primary and/or secondary replicas and initiate appropriate failover actions when a failure occurs; [0062]);
sending, by the application of the active node, a health check message every n part of the health check time interval to the resource component, wherein the health check message comprises the health check timer interval (For monitoring a replicated instance, an event processor can function as the monitoring component. An event processor can determine the health of an RDS instance by pinging, or otherwise communicating with, all the replicas associated with that instance. If an instance is not replicated, then the event processor only needs to communicate with the single host manager for the instance; [0082]); and
setting, by the resource component, upon receiving the health check message a health check timer according to the received health check timer interval from the application of the active node (This communication can include a heartbeat communication, for example, that happens at regular intervals such as a number of seconds specified by a T_heartbeat or similar parameter. Whenever a monitoring component pings P and S, the monitoring component in one embodiment issues a HTTP getStatus( ) command to the host manager running in each replica. When P and S each receive the call, the replicas can execute a BLRM or similar status call to determine the current state of each replica. For example, primary replica P can run a BLRM tool command to determine the status, such as IN_SYNC, STALLED, DEGRADED, DEAD, etc; [0062]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to add the features taught by Macdonald into the system of Kaushik in order to localize the recovery process as much as possible and to address a failure locally in a safe manner (Macdonald; [0111]).
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kaushik et al. (US 20220318107) in view of Engel et al. (US 10348675).
Regarding claim 7, Kaushik does not expressly disclose releasing, by the resource component, the monitoring of the first resource from the application of the active node in case the health check timer expires without receiving a health check message by the application of the active node, wherein then the active node is no longer considered as the active node.
In an analogous art, Engel discloses releasing, by the resource component, the monitoring of the first resource from the application of the active node in case the health check timer expires without receiving a health check message by the application of the active node, wherein then the active node is no longer considered as the active node (FIG. 5, a timing diagram of one embodiment of a stalled primary controller is shown. It may be assumed for the purposes of this discussion that the primary controller was functioning properly up until time 0 seconds. It may also be assumed that when healthy, the primary controller is configured to generate heartbeats every 0.1 seconds. It may also be assumed that the lease window is 0.5 seconds and that the takeover window is 1 second. In other embodiments, these values may vary within the constraints that the takeover window is greater than the lease window which is greater than the heartbeat interval. The primary controller generates heartbeats at −0.1 seconds and 0 seconds, and for the heartbeat generated at 0 seconds, the lease window is calculated from the heartbeat generated at −0.1 seconds. Accordingly, this lease window expires at 0.5 seconds; Col. 9).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to add the features taught by Engel into the system of Kaushik in order to prevent two computing devices from attempting to simultaneously control resource (Engel; Col. 7).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 5 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 5, if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims, would comprise a combination of elements which is not taught by the prior art of record.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Bhattacharyya et al. (US 20250199872), “IMPLEMENTING AN ACTIVE-ACTIVE RECOVERY PROCESS IN ASSOCIATION WITH CLUSTER MANAGER FAILOVER.”
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OUSSAMA ROUDANI whose telephone number is (571)272-4727. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30 AM - 5:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, UN C CHO can be reached at (571) 272 7919. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/OUSSAMA ROUDANI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2413
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