Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions.
Claims 1, 3, 5 – 14 and 15 – 23 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant presents the following arguments in the 20 May 2026 response:
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claim objection have been fully considered and are persuasive. The objection of claims 22 and 23 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the 35 USC 112 rejection have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 USC 112 rejection of claims 22 and 23 has been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1, 3, 5 – 13, 15 – 23 under 35 USC 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive in view of the amended claim language. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Eidler modified by Duchesneau. See rejection below.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 1, 3, 5 – 13 and 15 – 23 is/are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0210427 issued to Eidler et al (hereinafter Eidler) in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0216910 issued to Duchesneau (hereinafter Duchesneau).
As to claim 1, Eidler discloses a method for execution by a storage network, the method comprising:
determining data integrity information for data stored in select storage units of a plurality of storage units associated with the storage network (using checksum and logging routines to check data integrity and perform first, second and third level verifications of data, stored in the DMZ, storage locations or archive storage, to determine failures or micro-failures, including storage and CPU failures at the active site, see Eidler: Para. 0090 – 0091, 0099 – 0103, 0105 – 0110 and 0148 – 0151, individual storage/computer server is a data storage unit, storage servers and units at an active site are “select storage units”);
based on the data integrity information, determining whether a storage device associated with the select storage units has failed (determining failures or micro-failures based on verifications/checks of integrity data and checksums, including if the active site suffers a disaster that does not require abandonment of the active site, such as a security breach, loss of data, storage failure, CPU failure, etc., then in a recovery operation, operational copies of the backed up applications and data may be moved to computer servers and used at the active site., see Eidler: Para. 0090 – 0091, 0099 – 0100, 0106 – 0107 and 0148 – 0149);
in response to a determination that a storage device has failed, determining whether the storage device has failed due to a transitory condition (determination of failure due to a failed link, a time delay, server failure or a micro-failure thereof, see Eidler: Para. 0090 – 0091 and 0148 – 0149, and verification of transmitted data is checked using values including checksum values, see Eidler: Para. 0098 – 0100, 0106 – 0107 and 0148 – 0149);
in response to a determination that the storage device has failed due to a transitory condition, waiting a predetermined amount of time before determining data integrity information for the select storage units again (for temporary disasters, inflating files, applications and data sets and routing operations to a remote/temporary location until the disaster is mitigated instead of local recovery, see Eidler: Para. 0032, 0052 and 0148 – 0150, routing and inflating files, applications and data sets until a disaster is mitigated is a predetermined amount of time);
in response to a determination that the storage device has failed not due to a transitory condition, initiating rebuilding of data stored in the storage unit (disaster recovery utilizing a restore process, see Eidler: Para. 0033 – 0034 and 0047, and if the active site suffers a disaster that does not require abandonment of the active site, such as a security breach, loss of data, storage failure, CPU failure, etc., then in a recovery operation, operational copies of the backed up applications and data may be moved to computer servers and used at the active site. A micro-failure may comprise, for example, accidental deletion of the only copy of an important customer file, for which the customer does not have a local backup, but which was previously collected, transmitted, verified, and stored in data centers 170. Recovering from a micro-failure may involve performing a simple restore operation involving selecting an image, copying the image to CPE Server 114, performing verification, inflating and starting the image on the CPE Server for test purposes, shutting down the image, and copying the inflated image to customer storage for active use, see Eidler: Para. 0148 – 0151).
However, Eidler does not explicitly disclose wherein the data is dispersed storage error encoded to produce one or more sets of encoded slices; and initiating rebuilding of the portion of the storage network based on encoded data slices associated with the portion of the storage network.
Duchesneau teaches wherein the data is dispersed storage error encoded to produce one or more sets of encoded slices (FEC encoded slices in highly distributed nearline storage, see Duchesneau: Para. 0680 – 0681, 0690, 0696 – 0697, 0805 – 0813); and
initiating rebuilding of the portion of the storage network based on encoded data slices associated with the portion of the storage network (using the FEC (forward error correction) encoded slices and slivers when there are localized hard or soft failures for restoring data, see Duchesneau: Para. 0806 – 0813, 0973, 0979, 1019 – 1033, 1038).
Eidler and Duchesneau are analogous due to their disclosure of managing storage failure and recovery.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Eidler’s use of recovery at active sites during storage failure scenarios after determining if temporary with Duchesneau’s use of FEC (forward error correction) and ECC (error correcting code) for use in restoring of data slices during a storage failure in a distributed storage system in order to provide affordable, highly trustworthy, survivable, and operationally efficient super-computing while managing failures that need to be addressed (see Duchesneau: Para. 0014 – 0018 and 0148).
As to claim 3, Eidler modified by Duchesneau discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the select storage units are associated with a data storage site (storage failure, security breach, CPU failure, data loss, etc. at the active site and determination if recovery is to be done at the active site or routed to the serve provider or operational copies moved to the recovery site temporarily until the disaster is mitigated, see Eidler: Para. 0148 – 0149, see also 0032 and 0052, the active site comprising the servers is the data storage site).
As to claim 5, Eidler modified by Duchesneau discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the select storage units are associated with an address range associated with a storage site (addresses for the servers are collected and mapped to the SLA terms, see Eidler: Para. 0084 and 0148 – 0149, addresses of the servers at an active site make up and address range for the active site).
As to claim 6, Eidler modified by Duchesneau discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the storage device has failed is determined from a list consisting of:
a minimum number of data slice errors has been exceeded;
one or more storage devices is powered off;
one or more network elements is not functioning;
an equipment failure;
a scheduled storage unit outage; and
a threshold number of data slice errors has been exceeded (failures due to failed link, time delay, security breach, loss of data, storage failure, CPU failure, reasons other than a disaster, etc., see Eidler: Para. 0090, 0147 – 0152).
As to claim 7, Eidler modified by Duchesneau discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the determining data integrity information comprises executing a hash function on the data (verification includes encoding the data (hash values) and identifying variances among encoded data segments, see Eidler: Para. 0068).
As to claim 8, Eidler modified by Duchesneau discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the determining data integrity information comprises searching the selected storage units using a lookup list of unique identifiers associated with the data (verification code may be configured to individually identify files that are within received images of archives (e.g., ZIP files) so that the database 146 reflects names of individual files rather than opaque archives, verification code may be configured to individually identify individual database table spaces of a customer, rows and columns of databases, messages within message archives, calendars or other sub-applications within a unified information application, or other units of information. Further, database 146 may serve as a meta-catalog that references other data catalogs represented in storage units of the system, such as a directory maintained in the CommVault system, see Eidler: Para. 0098 – 0099 and 0152).
As to claim 9, Eidler modified by Duchesneau discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the determining data integrity information comprises calculating a checksum on the data (using checksum values for verification, see Eidler: Para. 0098 – 0104); and
comparing the checksum to a previously stored checksum (Comparing a checksum previously received from the CPE Server 114 before the transmission phase and associated with the same image, see Eidler: Para. 0098 – 0104).
As to claim 10, Eidler modified by Duchesneau discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the determining data integrity information comprises calculating a checksum on the data (using checksum values for verification, see Eidler: Para. 0098 – 0104), and comparing the checksum to a checksum calculated from a copy of the data (Comparing a checksum previously received from the CPE Server 114 before the transmission phase and associated with the same image, see Eidler: Para. 0098 – 0104) stored in one or more additional select storage units of the storage network (checksums may be stored in the stackware 148 and used for scheduling and automating timing of storage, see Eidler: Para. 0117 – 0118, stackware for the service provider stores and uses checksums of the data models for scheduling of storage operations, the checksums being from the CPE server of the active sites being utilized at the service provider for use with data centers, see 0117 – 0118 and Fig. 1).
As to claim 11, Eidler modified by Duchesneau discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
in response to a determination that a storage device associated with the select storage units has not failed, determining if a site failure has occurred (if active site 102 experiences a fire, flood, earthquake, or other natural disaster it may be necessary to abandon the active site at least temporarily and establish business operations elsewhere. Recovery site 120 represents a temporary operational location and comprises user stations 104A, a local network 106A, network connectivity to public network 130 through router 109A, and computer servers 108A. In this arrangement, user stations 104A may access backed up applications 110 and data 112 on hardware 150 using processes that are described further herein, see Eidler: Para. 0052, 0147 – 0150); and
in response to a determination that a site failure has occurred, determining whether the failure is due to a transitory condition (temporarily abandon the active site to use the recovery site until the disaster is mitigated, see Eidler: Para. 0052, 0147 – 0150);
in response to a determination that the site failure is due to a transitory condition, waiting a predetermined amount of time before determining data integrity information for the select storage units of the storage network again (route operations, such as virtually, to the service provider until the disaster is mitigated to be accessed at the recovery site, see Eidler: Para. 0052, 0147 – 0150); and
in response to a determination that the site failure is not due to a transitory condition, initiating rebuilding of the select storage units of the storage network (in a recovery operation, operational copies of the backed up applications 110 and data 112 may be moved to computer servers 108A and used locally, see Eidler: Para. 0052, 0147 – 0150, copies are rebuilt at computer servers local to the recovery site rather than accessed by copies at the service provider when the active site is experiencing a disaster).
As to claim 12, Eidler modified by Duchesneau discloses the method of claim 11, wherein the rebuilding comprises:
determining a plurality of unique identifiers associated with the data (database storing names of individuals files enables subsequent restoration operation to target the individual file rather than the entire archive, see Eidler: Para. 0098 – 0104);
rebuilding the data associated with each unique identifier of the plurality of unique identifiers to provide rebuilt data (database storing names of individuals files enables subsequent restoration operation to target the individual file rather than the entire archive, see Eidler: Para. 0098 – 0104); and
storing the rebuilt data at another storage network site (database 146 is located at the service provider, see Eidler: Fig.1 and Para. 0043, 0045, 0083 – 0087, 0094, 0098, 0117 and 0130).
Claim 13 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 1 above.
Claim 15 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 3 above.
Claim 16 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 4 above.
Claim 17 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 5 above.
Claim 18 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 7 (or 8 or 9 or 10) above.
Claim 19 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 11 above.
Claim 20 is rejected using similar rationale to the rejection of claim 12 above.
As to claim 21, Eidler modified by Duchesneau discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the select storage units are associated with an address range associated with a plurality of storage units (addresses for the servers are collected and mapped to the SLA terms, see Eidler: Para. 0084 and 0148 – 0149, each server is a storage unit and address thereof is the address range associated with the storage unit).
As to claim 22, Eidler modified by Duchesneau discloses the storage network of claim 13, wherein the data is associated with a common identifier (data associated with customer identifier and vm identifiers, see Eidler: Para. 0134 - 0136).
As to claim 23, Eidler discloses the storage network of claim 22, wherein the data is associated with a unique identifier and the common identifier (data associated with customer identifier and vm identifiers, see Eidler: Para. 0134 - 0136).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARK E HERSHLEY whose telephone number is (571)270-7774. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 9am-6pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amy Ng can be reached at (571) 270-1698. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MARK E HERSHLEY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2164
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