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 .
Status of the Claims
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharma et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2023/0409441 A1), hereinafter referred to as Sharma, in view of Samad et al. (U.S. Patent No. 11,288,137 B2), hereinafter referred to as Samad, in further view of Chopra et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2019/0332410 A1), hereinafter referred to as Chopra.
Regarding Claim 1, Sharma teaches:
A method for managing data protection, the method comprising:
installing, by a backup server operatively connected to a production environment, an active directory (AD) listener to the production environment, ([0066]; regarding, “a virtual machine that executes on a host client computing device 102 may be considered an application 110 and may be accompanied by a specific data agent 142 (e.g., virtual server data agent).”; [0114]; regarding, “Each data agent 142 may be specialized for a particular application 110. For instance, different individual data agents 142 may be designed to handle… Active Directory Objects data…”; [0084]; regarding, “Storage manager 140 comprises or operates in conjunction with one or more associated data structures such as a dedicated database (e.g., management database 146)… storage manager 140 is said to manage system 100, which includes communicating with, instructing, and controlling in some circumstances components such as data agents 142”);
wherein the AD listener listens to changes in an AD application of a virtual machine, wherein the changes comprise one of a list consisting of: changes to users operating the AD application, changes to devices installed and using the AD application, and AD objects added, deleted, or modified in the AD application; ([0113]; regarding, “Data agent 142 also may… capture application-related metadata…”; [0069]; regarding, “Metadata can include, without limitation, one or more of the following: the data owner (e.g., the client or user that generates the data), the last modified time (e.g., the time of the most recent modification of the data object), a data object name (e.g., a file name), a data object size (e.g., a number of bytes of data), information about the content…file location within a file folder directory structure, user permissions, owners, groups, access control lists (ACLs), system metadata…”);
obtaining, from the AD listener, a change report corresponding to the changes; ([0114]; regarding, “Each data agent 142 may be configured to access data and/or metadata stored in the primary storage device(s) 104 associated with data agent 142 and its host client computing device 102, and process the data appropriately. For example, during a secondary copy operation, data agent 142 may arrange or assemble the data and metadata into one or more files having a certain format (e.g., a particular backup or archive format) before transferring the file(s) to a media agent 144 or other component.”);
obtaining, by the backup server, a restoration request for a virtual machine that includes the AD application, ([0210]; regarding, “Storage manager 140 may accesses data in its index 150 and/or management database 146 (and/or the respective storage policy 148A) associated with the selected backup copy 116A to identify the appropriate media agent 144A and/or secondary storage device 108A where the secondary copy resides.”; [0211]; regarding, “Once it has retrieved backup copy 116A, the media agent 144A communicates the data to the requesting client computing device 102.”);
wherein the virtual machine (VM) executes in the production environment, ([0068]; regarding, “Primary data 112 is generally production data or “live” data generated by the operating system and/or applications 110 executing on client computing device 102.”);
and wherein the AD application comprises a set of AD objects and a directory service for managing the set of AD objects; ([0068]; regarding, “client computing device(s) 102 and corresponding applications 110 may create, access, modify, write, delete, and otherwise use primary data 112… primary data 112 can include files, directories, file system volumes, data blocks, extents, or any other hierarchies or organizations of data objects.”; [0069]; regarding, “Metadata generally includes information about data objects and/or characteristics associated with the data objects”; [0113]; regarding, “Data agent 142 also may… capture application-related metadata…”);
parsing a VM backup corresponding to the VM, stored in a backup storage system, to identify an AD application backup of the AD application using metadata stored in an index and search microservice of the backup server, ([0075]; regarding, “Secondary copies 116 may have been processed by data agent 142 and/or media agent 144 in the course of being created (e.g., compression, deduplication, encryption, integrity markers, indexing, formatting, application-aware metadata, etc.), and thus secondary copy 116 may represent source primary data 112 without necessarily being exactly identical to the source.”);
mounting, using an AD recovery microservice of the backup server and without using the backup agent, backups of the set of AD objects of the AD application backup to the production environment, ([0113]; regarding, “Data agent 142 also may receive instructions from storage manager 140 to restore (or assist in restoring) a secondary copy 116 from secondary storage device 108 to primary storage 104, such that the restored data may be properly accessed by application 110 in a suitable format as though it were primary data 112.”);
wherein the AD recovery microservice communicates with the backup storage system to obtain the backups of the AD objects to restore a subset of AD objects in the production environment; ([0113]; regarding, “Data agent 142 also may… capture application-related metadata before transmitting the processed data to media agent 144.”; [0116]; regarding, “media agents 144 can generate and store information relating to characteristics of the stored data and/or metadata, or can generate and store other types of information that generally provides insight into the contents of the secondary storage devices 108—generally referred to as indexing of the stored secondary copies 116.”; [0113]; regarding, “Data agent 142 also may receive instructions from storage manager 140 to restore… a secondary copy 116 from secondary storage device 108… such that the restored data may be properly accessed by application 110 in a suitable format as though it were primary data 112.”);
and providing, by the backup server and without using the backup agent, browse and restoration services to the production environment based on the mounting of the AD objects and using the AD recovery microservice, wherein the browse and restoration services include enabling a user of the production environment to select the subset of AD objects for restoration from the backup storage system. ([0074]; regarding, “Secondary storage computing devices 106 may index secondary copies 116 (e.g., using a media agent 144), enabling users to browse and restore at a later time and further enabling the lifecycle management of the indexed data.”);
Sharma fails to explicitly disclose but Samad teaches:
updating an AD application backup based on the change report; (Col. 2, lines 59-67; regarding, “The changes may include adding or removing an entity (e.g., a virtual machine, a component of a virtual machine, etc.) from the system, or modifying the entity to provide a different functionality. Embodiments of the invention may include identifying the change, determining whether the change impacts one or more restoration policies of the restoration policy repository, and if the change does impact a restoration policy, updating the restoration policy based on the change.”);
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Sharma with the teachings of Samad. Doing so could improve the efficiency of restoring a number of virtual machines (Samad, Col. 13, lines 53-60).
Sharma in view of Samad fails to explicitly disclose but Chopra teaches:
wherein the VM backup is generated by a backup agent executing on the production environment, ([0035]; regarding, “the remote backup agents (110) provide services to virtual machines. The services may include storing virtual machine data, generating backups of the virtual machines, and performing restorations of virtual machines.”);
and wherein the VM backup and the AD application backup are generated separately and stored separately in the backup storage system; ([0063]; regarding, “The backup/restoration policies (320D) may specify the frequency, storage location, restoration location, and other aspects of performing backups or restorations.”; [0073]; regarding, “the persistent storage (420) stores a deduplicated data storage (420A). The deduplicated data storage (420A) may be a data structure that includes data necessary to regenerate previously stored data structures.”);
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Sharma and Samad with the teachings of Chopra. Doing so could improve the rate of restoring virtual machines (Chopra, [0171]).
Regarding Claim 2, Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra teaches the method of claim 1 as referenced above. Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra further teaches:
prior to obtaining the restoration request: obtaining a backup request for backing up the VM; ([0103]; regarding, “Jobs agent 156 in some embodiments initiates, controls, and/or monitors the status of some or all information management operations previously performed, currently being performed, or scheduled to be performed by system 100. A job is a logical grouping of information management operations such as daily storage operations scheduled for a certain set of subclients (e.g., generating incremental block-level backup copies 116 at a certain time every day for database files in a certain geographical location). Thus, jobs agent 156 may access information management policies 148 (e.g., in management database 146) to determine when, where, and how to initiate/control jobs in system 100.”);
identifying the AD application on the VM; (Sharma, [0068]; regarding, “In general, primary data 112 can include files, directories, file system volumes, data blocks, extents, or any other hierarchies or organizations of data objects.”; [0069]; regarding, “… performing certain functions of system 100 to access and modify metadata within primary data 112.”);
performing a backup of the VM in response to the backup request to store the VM backup and the AD application backup in the backup storage system; ([0272]; regarding, “Method 600 is generally directed to restoring data to production database 312, based on temporary backup files 350 and/or secondary copies 116 generated by method 500.”);
and based on the identifying, marking the VM backup as AD-enabled, wherein the parsing is performed in response to determining that the VM backup is AD-enabled. ([0075]; regarding, “Secondary copies 116 may have been processed by data agent 142 and/or media agent 144 in the course of being created (e.g., compression, deduplication, encryption, integrity markers, indexing, formatting, application-aware metadata, etc.), and thus secondary copy 116 may represent source primary data 112 without necessarily being exactly identical to the source.”);
Regarding Claim 3, Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra teaches the method of claim 2 as referenced above. Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra further teaches:
wherein the index and search microservice tracks storage and recovery of backups of the set of AD objects in the backup storage system, and wherein the index and search microservice generates the metadata while the backup is performed using the tracked storage and recovery of backups. (Sharma, [0074]; regarding, “Secondary storage computing devices 106 may index secondary copies 116 (e.g., using a media agent 144), enabling users to browse and restore at a later time and further enabling the lifecycle management of the indexed data. After creation of a secondary copy 116 that represents certain primary data 112, a pointer or other location indicia (e.g., a stub) may be placed in primary data 112, or be otherwise associated with primary data 112, to indicate the current location of a particular secondary copy 116. Since an instance of a data object or metadata in primary data 112 may change over time as it is modified by application 110 (or hosted service or the operating system), system 100 may create and manage multiple secondary copies 116 of a particular data object or metadata, each copy representing the state of the data object in primary data 112 at a particular point in time.”).
Regarding Claim 4, Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra teaches the method of claim 2 as referenced above. Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra further teaches:
wherein the backup storage system comprises a plurality of VM backups, and wherein at least one of the VM backups is not AD- enabled. (Sharma, Fig. 1D, [0130]; regarding, “Backup operations can include full backups, differential backups, incremental backups, “synthetic full” backups, and/or creating a “reference copy.””).
Regarding Claim 5, Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra teaches the method of claim 1 as referenced above. Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra further teaches:
wherein the VM backup is stored separately from the AD application backup, and wherein the AD application backup comprises backups of the subset of AD objects. (Sharma, [0113]; regarding, “Data agent 142 also may… capture application-related metadata before transmitting the processed data to media agent 144.”; [0116]; regarding, “media agents 144 can generate and store information relating to characteristics of the stored data and/or metadata, or can generate and store other types of information that generally provides insight into the contents of the secondary storage devices 108—generally referred to as indexing of the stored secondary copies 116.”; [0113]; regarding, “Data agent 142 also may receive instructions from storage manager 140 to restore… a secondary copy 116 from secondary storage device 108… such that the restored data may be properly accessed by application 110 in a suitable format as though it were primary data 112.”).
Regarding Claim 6, Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra teaches the method of claim 5 as referenced above. Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra further teaches:
wherein an identifier of the VM backup is stored in a backup catalog of the backup server. (Sharma, [0185]; regarding, “System 100 generally organizes and catalogues the results into a content index, which may be stored within media agent database 152, for example. The content index can also include the storage locations of or pointer references to indexed data in primary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116.”).
Regarding Claim 7, Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra teaches the method of claim 6 as referenced above. Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra further teaches:
wherein the backup catalog further comprises a backup schedule for generating the VM backup. (Sharma, [0107]; regarding, “management database 146 may comprise data needed to kick off secondary copy operations (e.g., storage policies, schedule policies, etc.), status and reporting information about completed jobs (e.g., status and error reports on yesterday's backup jobs), and additional information sufficient to enable restore and disaster recovery operations (e.g., media agent associations, location indexing, content indexing, etc.).”).
Regarding Claim 8, Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra teaches the method of claim 1 as referenced above. Sharma in view of Samad in further view of Chopra further teaches:
wherein the production environment comprises a plurality of VMs each hosting at least one of a plurality of AD applications, wherein the VM is one of the plurality of VMs. (Sharma, [0120]; regarding, “A variety of different applications 110 can operate on a given client computing device 102, including operating systems, file systems, database applications, e-mail applications, and virtual machines”).
Claims 9-16 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 under the same grounds of rejection as claims 1-8 respectively.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 02/17/2026 have been fully considered.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the previous rejection on independent Claim 1,
and similarly Claims 9 and 17, have been considered and a new grounds of rejection has been
provided addressing the newly claimed matter. See please the above detailed rejection of the
newly recited subject matter.
Newly cited references Sharma and Samad in combination with Chopra teaches installing, by a backup server operatively connected to a production environment, an active directory (AD) listener to the production environment, wherein the AD listener listens to changes in an AD application of a virtual machine, wherein the changes comprise one of a list consisting of: changes to users operating the AD application, changes to devices installed and using the AD application, and AD objects added, deleted, or modified in the AD application; obtaining, from the AD listener, a change report corresponding to the changes; updating an AD application backup based on the change report;
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATHEW GUSTAFSON whose telephone number is (571)272-5273. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00-4:00.
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/M.D.G./Examiner, Art Unit 2113
/BRYCE P BONZO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2113
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