DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This is a first office action in response to application filed, with the above serial number, on 19 August 2024 in which claims 1-20 are presented for examination. Claims 1-20 are therefore pending in the application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. The new claims in the CON do not have clear support for at least:
determining a number of switching domains across multiple data center sites;
determining a number of the gateway proxies based on the number of switching domains;
The specification does not disclose any ‘determining’ and par. 48 only offers “For all these different deployment options, not only is it important to scale out the gateway proxies 410 so that they can satisfy the scale of the servers 416 that need to be managed below the managed switch domains,”. While par. 22 provides “Further, the techniques include managing a stretched compute cluster across a multi-site deployment, and/or multiple compute clusters across a multi-site deployment, where the number of gateway proxies running on the cluster(s) is dynamically managed to minimize the impact of a gateway proxy failure for the various switch domains in the multi-site deployment.” Thus, the specification at best supports a number of gateway proxies running on the cluster(s) is dynamically managed for the switch domains to be minimally impacted (by failure). While the claims recite, in effect, determining a number of gateway proxies (almost as a ratio [number based on number]) based on a number of switching domains.
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 1-20 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. See above 112a for analysis.
Claim 6, 13, 20 are 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. The claims recite “a pod of a compute clusters”, it is indefinite if there are multiple clusters claimed or a compute cluster.
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) 1-4, 6-11, 13-18, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Mestery et al (hereinafter “Mestery”, 10,764,244).
As per Claim 1, Mestery discloses a method for providing data-plane connectivity through data centers to manage endpoint devices in the data centers, the method comprising:
determining, by an orchestration system, to instantiate gateway proxies in multiple sites of the data centers, the gateway proxies each providing connectivity to a cloud management platform on behalf of the endpoint devices (at least col. 5:1-15; an array of network proxies alongside the containers. Each proxy or agent, referred to as a “sidecar proxy”, serves as a gateway to interactions that occur between containers);
determining a number of switching domains across multiple data center sites (at least col. 7:17-33; defined set of known subnets, such as those leading to a group of branch sites or to a data center);
determining a number of the gateway proxies based on the number of switching domains (at least col. 5:1-15; sidecar proxy assists in spreading compute load across the service mesh and directing a request to the appropriate downstream container that can serve the request. A central controller may orchestrate the connections in the service mesh, and a control plane may be configured to monitor the service traffic flowing between sidecar proxies); and
instantiating the number of the gateway proxies on a stretched compute cluster across the multiple sites (at least col. 5:1-15, 4:35-53; automating the deployment and management of containerized application; the provision of a large number (e.g., hundreds or thousands) of containers. Discrete hardware appliances for managing these large numbers of containers are not practical, and hence, a “service mesh” is employed to manage and deliver the microservices which may be integrated within a compute cluster of a cloud-native environment).
As per Claim 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data centers are of a Layer 2/Layer 3 (L2/L3) fabric that is deployed according to a 3-tier access/aggregation/core deployment (at least col. 7:17-8:19; 10:50-11:11).
As per Claim 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the data centers are of a Layer 2/Layer 3 (L2/L3) fabric that is deployed according to a routed fabric deployment (at least col. 7:17-8:19; 10:50-11:11).
As per Claim 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the data centers are of a Layer 2/Layer 3 (L2/L3) fabric that is deployed according to a Virtual Extensible LAN Ethernet Virtual Private Network (VXLAN-EVPN) fabric deployment (at least col. 7:17-8:19; 10:50-11:11; 8:53-67).
As per Claim 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the gateway proxies are included in a pod of a compute clusters managed using the orchestration system (at least col. 4:35-53; Discrete hardware appliances for managing these large numbers of containers are not practical, and hence, a “service mesh” is employed to manage and deliver the microservices which may be integrated within a compute cluster of a cloud-native environment).
As per Claim 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the number of the gateway proxies are instantiated across multiple stretched compute clusters across the multiple sites (at least col. 4:35-5:35; Discrete hardware appliances for managing these large numbers of containers are not practical, and hence, a “service mesh” is employed to manage and deliver the microservices which may be integrated within a compute cluster of a cloud-native environment).
Claims 8-11, 13-18, 20 do not, in substance, add or define any additional limitations over claims 1-4, 6-7 and therefore are rejected for similar reasons, supra.
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) 5, 12, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mestery in view of Matsumoto (hereinafter “Matsumoto”, 2006/0233144).
Mestery fails to disclose each site of the multiple sites has at least a pair of gateway proxies; and at least one gateway proxies in each pair of gateway proxies has a site local affinity for headless management in response to a loss of site-to-site connectivity. However, the use and advantages for using such a system was well known to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention as evidenced by the teachings of Matsumoto. Matsumoto discloses, in an analogous art, a secondary proxy gateway for another gateway for an enterprise network taking over when faults occur (at least paragraph 203-206). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the use of Matsumoto’s pair of gateway proxies with Mestery as this would have the well known benefit of backup of a device when the device goes down by fault or also when load balancing to another proxy gateway.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GREGORY TODD whose telephone number is (303)297-4763. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30-5 MST.
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/GREGORY TODD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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