DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
This action is in reply to the application filed on 05/30/2024.
Claims 1-20 are currently 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 § 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.
Claims 1, 5-12, 14, 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Chaloupka et al. (US 2017/0235605 A1).
Claims 1, 14, and 20:
Chaloupka discloses the limitations as shown in the following rejections:
assigning, by a data management system (DMS), a first set of jobs to a first job group from a plurality of job groups based at least in part on the first set of jobs and the first job group (job type/subtype) both being second job group from associated with one or more first semaphores; assigning, by the DMS, a second set of jobs to a the plurality of job groups based at least in part on the second set of jobs and the second job group both being associated with one or more second semaphores (¶0050, 0059-0061, 0075-0077), disclosing at least “a semaphore for the particular job type corresponding to the job request is determined…For example, if a limit of five concurrent job requests of type A are allowed, only five semaphores at a time may be respectively assigned to the job requests of type A” (¶0059)
scheduling for execution, by one or more dispatchers (message processor task/picker task) of the DMS, one or more first jobs assigned to the first job group based at least in part on the one or more first semaphores being available and one or more second jobs assigned to the second job group based at least in part on the one or more second semaphores being available (¶0057-0059, 0062-0063).
executing, based at least in part on the scheduling, the one or more first jobs using one or more first resources of the DMS corresponding to the one or more first semaphores; and executing, based at least in part on the scheduling, the one or more second jobs using one or more second resources of the DMS corresponding to the one or more second semaphores (¶0059-0061, 0067, 0073).
[Claim 14, 20] An apparatus, comprising: one or more memories storing processor-executable code; and one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to execute the code (¶0026, 0035, 0078; FIG. 1 and 7).
Claims 5, 6, 18 and 19:
Chaloupka discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Chaloupka further discloses identifying, at a first time subsequent to scheduling the one or more first jobs for execution, an unavailability of at least one semaphore of the one or more first semaphores; and refraining, subsequent to the first time, from scheduling one or more additional jobs assigned to the first job group based at least in part on the at least one semaphore of the one or more first semaphores being unavailable…identifying, at a second time subsequent to the first time, that the one or more first semaphores are available; scheduling for execution, at or subsequent to the second time, one or more jobs of the one or more additional jobs assigned to the first job group; and executing, based at least in part on the scheduling at or subsequent to the second time, the one or more jobs of the one or more additional jobs using the one or more first resources of the DMS corresponding to the one or more first semaphores (¶0059-0061; FIG. 5), disclosing:
“the system may use a semaphore access-control scheme to enforce limitations on concurrent processing of job requests for a tenant. At step 555, a semaphore for the particular job type corresponding to the job request is determined. That is, with tenants who may have limitations placed on the number of concurrent job requests of the same type that may be processed, the system may not allow the processing of another concurrent job request until other previously begun jobs are completed. For example, if a limit of five concurrent job requests of type A are allowed, only five semaphores at a time may be respectively assigned to the job requests of type A. If all five semaphores are locked, then the sixth job request of type A must wait for one of the initial five job requests of type A to be finished so as to release one of the five allotted semaphores (¶0059)…After performing the work and completing the processing of the underlying job of the job request, the method may then release the semaphore” (¶0061).
Claim 7:
Chaloupka discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Chaloupka further discloses:
identifying a first priority of the first job group and a second priority of the second job group, wherein the first priority is higher than the second priority, and wherein at least one semaphore is included in both the one or more first semaphores and the one or more second semaphores (¶0050, 0059-0060, 0075-0077), "define the allocation of the total number of processor tasks that may be assigned to process a specific job type simultaneously, e.g., define the number of semaphores available...may assign certain high-priority jobs of type X to its sub-type A. In this manner, the user assigns the use of A's dedicated processor only for those high-priority jobs (0075)...may be further customized by allowing jobs of a sub-type to use processors of its base type under some conditions" (0076).
identifying, at a second time subsequent to the first time, that the one or more first semaphores are available; scheduling for execution, at or subsequent to the second time, one or more jobs of the one or more additional jobs assigned to the first job group based at least in part on the first priority being higher than the second priority; and refraining from scheduling for execution, at or subsequent to the second time, one or more second additional jobs of the second job group based at least in part on the first priority being higher than the second priority (¶0059-0061, 0066).
Claim 8:
Chaloupka discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Chaloupka further discloses assigning, by the DMS, a third set of jobs to a third job group from the plurality of job groups based at least in part on the third set of jobs and the third job group both being associated with one or more third semaphores; scheduling for execution, by at least one of the one or more dispatchers of the DMS, one or more third jobs assigned to the third job group based at least in part on the one or more third semaphores being available; and executing, based at least in part on the scheduling, the one or more third jobs using one or more third resources of the DMS corresponding to the one or more third semaphores (¶0059-0061, 0066, 0075-0077), “In this embodiment, a set of job queues for job type X, job type Y and job type Z are shown” (¶0066).
Claims 9 and 10:
Chaloupka discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Chaloupka further discloses further comprising: storing, by the DMS and in a data store (database 415) accessible to the DMS, first metadata (attributes) indicating that the first set of jobs and that the first set of jobs are associated with the first job group and second metadata indicating that the second set of jobs and that the second set of jobs are associated with the second job group…. obtaining, by the one or more dispatchers, the first metadata and the second metadata, wherein the scheduling is based at least in part on the obtaining (¶0050-0052, 0060, 0063; FIG. 4).
Claim 11:
Chaloupka discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Chaloupka further discloses identifying, by the DMS, a first priority of the first job group and a second priority of the second job group, wherein the first priority is higher than the second priority, wherein at least one semaphore is included in both the one or more first semaphores and the one or more second semaphores, and wherein the scheduling comprises scheduling the one or more first jobs for execution prior to scheduling the one or more second jobs for execution based at least in part on the first priority being higher than the second priority (¶0050, 0059-0060, 0066, 0075-0077).
Claim 12:
Chaloupka discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Chaloupka further discloses wherein the one or more first resources and the one or more second resources comprise memory of the DMS, disk space of the DMS, communication channels within the DMS, communication channels with external computing objects, or any combination thereof (¶0021, 0024, 0050).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 2, 3, 15, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chaloupka in view of Gauthier et al. (US 2020/0272511 A1).
Claims 2 and 15:
Chaloupka discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Chaloupka does not specifically disclose scheduling for execution, by a first dispatcher of the one or more dispatchers, the one or more first jobs, wherein the first dispatcher is associated with the first job group; and scheduling for execution, by a second dispatcher of the one or more dispatchers, the one or more second jobs, wherein the second dispatcher is associated with the second job group.
Gauthier, however, discloses (¶0054-0055, 0059-0061, 0073-0077, 0090-0094) an analogous task processing system where sets of tasks are grouped into an application (job group) and there is a respective dispatcher created for each application which handles the dispatching/scheduling of that application’s tasks and accordingly discloses scheduling for execution, by a first dispatcher of the one or more dispatchers, the one or more first jobs (tasks), wherein the first dispatcher is associated with the first job group (first application); and scheduling for execution, by a second dispatcher of the one or more dispatchers, the one or more second jobs, wherein the second dispatcher is associated with the second job group (second application). Exemplary quotations:
“server-side dispatcher 312 can be included in a set of dispatchers in the server-side layer 310. For instance, a separate dispatcher can be created for each application priority level. Each dispatcher can help dispatch and orchestrate an overall load, including pending requests in a queue 318 and incoming requests, among available application servers” (¶0054)
“first application 502 can, at 506, create a first dispatcher instance…The second application 504 can, at 510, create a second dispatcher instance 510, which can perform processing similar to step 509 (e.g., at 511), but for the second application 504. Each application 502 and 504 can perform similar tasks after creating a respective dispatcher instance” (¶0074)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing date of the invention to modify Chaloupkas to employ Gauthier’s multi-dispatcher implementation to enable fine grained control over the different dispatching strategies being employed, facilitating improved load balancing and resource utilization efficiency (Gauthier ¶0037-0038, 0150-0152).
Claims 3 and 16:
The combination of Chaloupka/Gauthier discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Gauthier further discloses wherein the scheduling for execution of the one or more first jobs by the first dispatcher occurs in parallel with the scheduling for execution of the one or more second jobs by the second dispatcher (¶0034-0037, 0073).
Claims 4 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chaloupka in view of Pautasso et al (“Autonomic Execution of Web Service Compositions”, 2005).
Claims 4 and 17:
Chaloupka discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Chaloupka does not specifically disclose identifying, by the DMS, that a quantity of jobs assigned to the first job group exceeds a threshold; and assigning, by the DMS, a plurality of dispatchers to the first job group based at least in part on the quantity of jobs assigned to the first job group exceeding the threshold, wherein scheduling for execution the one or more first jobs assigned to the first job group comprises scheduling for execution a first subset of the one or more first jobs by a first dispatcher of the plurality of dispatchers and scheduling for execution a second subset of the one or more first jobs by a second dispatcher of the plurality of dispatchers.
Pautasso, however, discloses (pg. 2, § 2) an analogous task processing system which employs a pool of dispatcher threads to schedule tasks/jobs for execution, and further discloses (pg. 2, § 3.2; pg. 3, § 3.3; pg. 5, col. 1) scaling of the dispatchers including assigning additional dispatchers to process tasks when the queue length of outstanding tasks exceeds a threshold (a plurality of dispatchers to the first job group based at least in part on the quantity of jobs assigned to the first job group exceeding the threshold), "Since the navigator and dispatcher threads communicate asynchronously through event queues, it is possible to sample the current queue length in order to detect whether the system is balanced (pg. 2, § 3.2)...Once the growth of the task queue has overstepped the Tstart threshold (set to 10 in this experiment), one dispatcher thread is added to the configuration." (pg. 5, col. 1).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing date of the invention to modify Chaloupkas to increase the number of message processors/dispatchers in response to load increases as taught by Pautasso in order to maintain optimal resource usage when experiencing workload spikes (Pautasso pg. 1, Abstract; pg. 8, § 6).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chaloupkas in view of Chandrasekaran et al. (US 20250139053 A1).
Claim 13:
Chaloupka discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Chaloupka does not disclose backup/recovery jobs as exemplary task types and does not specifically disclose identifying a plurality of jobs associated with the backup operation or the recovery operation, wherein the plurality of jobs comprise the first set of jobs and the second set of jobs.
Chandrasekaran, however, discloses (pg. 2, § 2) an analogous task dispatching system configured for receiving, by the DMS, an indication to perform a backup operation or a recovery operation for a computing object; and identifying a plurality of jobs associated with the backup operation or the recovery operation, wherein the plurality of jobs comprise the first set of jobs and the second set of jobs (¶0130-0133). ). Exemplary quotations:
“GS dispatcher 720 may query the GS database 716 for eligible jobs and creating a pipeline for each type of job for each node 736a-336e. For example, the GS dispatcher 720 may create a first pipeline, or series of jobs, for replication jobs and a second pipeline for backup jobs. The GS dispatcher may then publish the job pipelines to the GS queues 722. Each job pipeline may be published to its own queue in the GS queues 722. For example, the replication job pipeline may be published to the replication job queue and the backup job pipeline may be published to the backup job queue.”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing date of the invention to substitute Chaloupkas tasks with backup/replication jobs such as those taught by Chandrasekaran as it represents the simple substitution of one type of task for another with predictable results.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure:
The following are directed task dispatching implementations: US 20210374152 A1, US 20170132037 A1; US 20090217288 A1, “HTDcr: a job execution framework for high-throughput computing on supercomputers”.
The following are directed to semaphore based concurrency control: US 7353515 B1, US 20050071529 A1, US 20130312007 A1
Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to Paul Mills whose telephone number is 571-270-5482. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 11:00am-8:00pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, April Blair can be reached at 571-270-1014.
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/P. M./
Paul Mills
08/05/2026
/APRIL Y BLAIR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2196
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