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 § 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.
Claims 14 and 15 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 14 recites a computing device implementing “steps of the method according to claim 7.” Claim 15 recites a computer readable storage medium implementing “steps of the method according to claim 7.” Claim 7 is an information processing method explicitly “applied in the resource scheduling system of claim 1.” A person of ordinary skill in the art cannot determine the full scope of what is being claimed as the functional limitation of claim 7 are performed in a resource scheduling system of claim 1 and would thereby conflict with the subsequent apparatus of claim 14 of a computing device (with no correlation to the resource scheduling system) and a computer readable storage medium executable by a processor, having no correlation to the resource scheduling system of claim 1 which creates ambiguity to the intended scope.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 5, 13, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hindman “Mesos: A Platform for Fine-Grained Resource Sharing in the Data Center”
As to claim 1, Hindman teaches, A resource scheduling system, comprising: a scheduler and a task manager, wherein the task manager comprises a task processor and a resource processing node; (See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 2) “Each framework running on Mesos consists of two components: a scheduler that registers with the master to be offered resources, and an executor process that is launched on slave nodes to run the framework’s tasks.” , (See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 2) “Mesos consists of a master process that manages slave daemons running on each cluster node, and frameworks that run tasks on these slaves.” the task processor is configured to: receive a task processing request submitted for a task to be processed; (See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 3) “In step (2), the master sends a resource offer describing these resources to framework 1. In step (3), the framework’s scheduler replies to the master with information about two tasks to run on the slave…” create, based on the task processing request, a resource acquiring request and send the resource acquiring request to the scheduler; (See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 3) “In step (3), the framework’s scheduler replies to the master with information about two tasks to run on the slave, using ⟨2 CPUs,1 GB RAM⟩ for the first task, and ⟨1 CPUs,2 GB RAM⟩ for the second task.”, (See Hindman, Abstract) “frameworks decide which resources to accept and which computations to run on them.”, (See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P.2) “When a framework accepts offered resources, it passes Mesos a description of the tasks it wants to launch on them.” the resource processing node is configured to: receive the task processing request; (See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 3) “Finally, in step (4), the master sends the tasks to the slave, which al locates appropriate resources to the framework’s executor, which in turn launches the two tasks (depicted with dotted borders).” and create, based on the task processing request, schedulable resource information and send the schedulable resource information to the scheduler; (See Hindman, 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 3) “In step (1), slave 1 reports to the master that it has 4 CPUs and 4 GB of memory free.” the scheduler is configured to execute, according to the resource acquiring request and the schedulable resource information, resource scheduling on the task to be processed, to obtain a resource scheduling result; (See Hindman, 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 3) “The master then invokes the allocation module, which tells it that framework 1 should be offered all available resources.” , (See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 2) “The master decides how many resources to offer to each framework according to an organizational policy, such as fair sharing or priority.” and send the resource scheduling result to the resource processing node and the task processor. (See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 3) “In step (2), the master sends a resource offer describing these resources to framework 1.”; see also pg. 4, Resource Allocations, Making Resource Offers Scalable and Robust, pg. 5, Table 1, pg. 6, 4.3 Placement preferences)
(See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 3) “Finally, in step (4), the master sends the tasks to the slave, which allocates appropriate resources to the framework’s executor, which in turn launches the two tasks (depicted with dotted borders).”
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In regards to claim 5, Hindman teaches, the task processor is further configured to: receive the resource scheduling result, and send, based on the resource scheduling result, the task to be processed to the resource processing node; (See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 3) “In step (2), the master sends a resource offer describing these resources to framework 1. In step (3), the framework’s scheduler replies to the master with information about two tasks to run on the slave, using ⟨2 CPUs,1 GB RAM⟩ for the first task, and ⟨1 CPUs,2 GB RAM⟩ for the second task.” (See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 2) “When a framework accepts offered resources, it passes Mesos a description of the tasks it wants to launch on them.”
the resource processing node is further configured to: receive the resource scheduling result and the task to be processed, determine, according to the resource scheduling result, a target resource corresponding to the task to be processed, and use the target resource to execute the task to be processed. (See Hindman, Section 3.2 Overview, pg. 3, P. 3) “Finally, in step (4), the master sends the tasks to the slave, which al locates appropriate resources to the framework’s executor, which in turn launches the two tasks (depicted with dotted borders).”
Claim 13 is an independent resource scheduling method claim reciting the same limitations as claim 1 in the method form. The analysis and citations set forth with respect to claim 1 apply in full to claim 13.
Claim 19 depends from claim 13 and recites the same limitations as claim 5 in the method form. The analysis and citations set forth with respect to claim 5 apply in full to claim 19.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 2-4, 16-18, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hindman “Mesos: A Platform for Fine-Grained Resource Sharing in the Data Center” in view of HIRAI (US8074222B2)
In regards to claim 2 HIRAI teaches, under a situation where the scheduler is at a malfunction recovery state: create, according to the malfunction recovery state, an information acquiring request; (Column 19, Lines 21-60) “When the cause of the failure in the management node 100 is eliminated, the management node 100 is started.”, “The DB reconstruction unit 123 sends an instruction to send execution-resource information to the calculation nodes 200 and 300.” send the information acquiring request to the resource processing node and the task processor; (Column 19, Lines 21-60) “The execution instruction unit 122 in the management node 100 sends a node-incorporation instruction to the calculation nodes 200 and 300.”, “The DB reconstruction unit 123 sends an instruction to send execution-resource information to the calculation nodes 200 and 300.” under a situation of receiving malfunction recovery information associated with the information acquiring request, execute malfunction recovery processing based on the malfunction recovery information; (Column 20, Lines 7-61) “The DB reconstruction unit 123 in the management node 100 receives the execution-resource information sent from the calculation node 200 (as the job master node).”“The DB reconstruction unit 123 reconstructs the job DB 130…” “The DB reconstruction unit 123 determines whether or not execution of the job can be continued.”
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing of the claimed invention to additionally send the resource scheduling result to the task processor under this situation as indicated in Hirai, within the teachings of Hindman as Hindman teaches that the task processor holds relevant recovery state (“soft state”) and the schedulers would be permitted to perform failure recovery in processing the task.
In regards to claim 3, HIRAI teaches under a situation of receiving the malfunction recovery information fed back by the resource processing node, determine a target resource scheduling result according to the malfunction recovery information, and send the target resource scheduling result to the task processor and the resource processing node; (Column 20, Lines 7-61) “The DB reconstruction unit 123 in the management node 100 receives the execution-resource information sent from the calculation node 200 (as the job master node).”“The DB reconstruction unit 123 reconstructs the job DB 130…” “When the execution of the job is determined to be able to continue, the DB reconstruction unit 123 sends a notice of the restart of the execution of the job to the calculation nodes 200 and 300…” under a situation of receiving the malfunction recovery information fed back by the task processor, send scheduling result cancel information to the task processor. (Column 21, Lines 19-55) “Then, the management node 100 sends an instruction to cut off the parallel job 31, to the calculation nodes 300 and 400 (which operate as job slave nodes)”
See claim 2 for the motivation to combine.
In regards to claim 4, HIRAI teaches, determine whether the malfunction recovery information is received within a preset time interval; if yes, perform the step of executing the malfunction recovery processing based on the malfunction recovery information; if no, send the resource result cancel information to the resource processing node and the task processor. (Column 20, Lines 7-61) “The DB reconstruction unit 123 in the management node 100 receives the execution-resource information sent from the calculation node 200 (as the job master node).” “The DB reconstruction unit 123 determines whether or not execution of the job can be continued.”
Refer to claim for the motivation to combine.
Claims 16, 17, and 18 depend from claim 13 and recite in the method form the same limitations as claims 2, 3, and 4 respectively. The analysis and citations set forth with respect to claims 2, 3, and 4 apply in full to claims 16, 17, and 18.
In regards to claim 20, Hindman discloses all method steps recited in claim 20 as set forth in the analysis of claim 13 above. Hindman does not explicitly disclose a computer readable storage medium. HIRAI discloses storing computer executable instructions implementing a resource scheduling method on a computer readable storage medium. (Column 28, Lines 4-25) “The program describing the details of the processing can be stored in a recording medium which can be read by the computer. The recording medium may be a magnetic recording device, an optical disk, an optical magnetic recording medium, a semiconductor memory, or the like. The magnetic recording device may be a hard disk drive (HDD), a flexible disk (FD), a magnetic tape (MT), or the like. The optical disk may be a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk), a DVD-RAM (Random Access Memory), a CD-ROM (Compact Disk-Read Only Memory), a CD-R (Recordable)/RW (ReWritable), or the like. The optical magnetic recording medium may be an MO (Magneto-Optical Disk) or the like.”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to implement the resource scheduling method of Hindman on a computer readable storage medium as taught by HIRAI in order to perform job processing during recovery (see abstract).
Claim 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hindman “Mesos: A Platform for Fine-Grained Resource Sharing in the Data Center” in view of HIRAI (US8074222B2) and further in view of Vavilapalli “Apache Hadoop YARN: Yet Another Resource Negotiator”
In regards to claim 6, Vavilapalli teaches, the task processor is further configured to, under a situation of monitoring that an execution of the task to be processed is completed, send task execution completed information corresponding to the task to be processed to the scheduler; (See Vavilapalli, Section 3.1 Overview, P. 3) “The ApplicationMaster is the “head” of a job, managing all lifecycle aspects including dynamically increasing and decreasing resources consumption, managing the flow of execution (e.g., running reducers against the output of maps), handling faults and computation skew, and performing other local optimizations.” (See Vavilapalli, Section 3.5 YARN framework/application writers, P. 8) “It may also monitor the status of the running container and stop it when the resource should be re claimed. Monitoring the progress of work done inside the container is strictly the AM’s responsibility.” (See Vavilapalli, Section 3.5 YARN framework/application writers, P. 8) “Once the AM is done with its work, it should un register from the RM and exit cleanly.”
the scheduler is further configured to: create, based on the task execution completed information, a resource release request, and send the resource release request to the resource processing node; (See Vavilapalli, Section 3.2 Resource Manager, P. 5) “The RM forwards the exit status of finished containers, as reported by the NMs, to the responsible AMs.” (See Vavilapalli, Section 3.2 Resource Manager, P. 6) “If the application is non collaborative, the RM can, after waiting for a certain amount of time, obtain the needed resources by instructing the NMs to forcibly terminate containers.” (See Vivilapalli, Section 3.4 Node Manager, P. 7) “The NM will also kill containers as directed by the RM or the AM. Containers may be killed when the RM reports its owning application as completed, when the scheduler decides to evict it for another tenant, or when the NM detects that the container exceeded the limits of its lease”
the resource processing node is further configured to: receive the resource release request, and release the target resource according to the resource release request. (See Vivilapalli, Section 3.4 Node Manager, P. 7) “The NM will also kill containers as directed by the RM or the AM. Containers may be killed when the RM reports its owning application as completed, when the scheduler decides to evict it for another tenant, or when the NM detects that the container exceeded the limits of its lease” (See Vivilapalli, Section 3.4 Node Manager, P. 7) “Whenever a container exits, the NM will clean up its working directory in local storage. When an application completes, all resources owned by its containers are discarded on all nodes, including any of its processes still running in the cluster.”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to implement the task completion monitoring and resource release mechanism of Vivilapalli in the resource scheduling system of Hindman.
Claim Objections
Claims 7-12 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 and any intervening claims.
Claims 14 and 15 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Conclusion
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/SELMAN MOHAMED ABDULLAHI/Examiner, Art Unit 2199
/LEWIS A BULLOCK JR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2199
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