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 .
This is a Non-Final Office Action Correspondence in response to U.S. Application No. 19/835,175 filed on 08/01/2024.
Claims 1-8 are pending. Claims 1 and 7 are independent claims.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 08/02/2024 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) is/are being considered by the examiner.
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 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) 1, 5, and 7-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kodama et al. (U.S. Patent No. 10,740,138 B2, hereinafter “Kodama”) in view of Barrett (BR 102016017156 A2).
Regarding claim 1, Kodama teaches a virtual machine power consumption prediction device, comprising:
a memory (Kodama Fig. 9); and
a processor coupled to the memory (Kodama Fig. 9) and configured to:
calculate power consumption of a virtual machine running on a first server on the basis of a resource usage state on the first server (Kodama Col 5 Ln 8-30 and Fig. 4).
Kodama fails to explicitly teach predict power consumption of the virtual machine when the virtual machine is moved to a second server on the basis of an index indicating energy consumption efficiency of each of the first server and the second server. However, in the same field of endeavor, Barrett teaches predict power consumption of the virtual machine when the virtual machine is moved to a second server on the basis of an index indicating energy consumption efficiency of each of the first server and the second server (Barrett ¶0044 and ¶0052, i.e., suitability index).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Kodama by incorporating the teachings of Barrett. The motivation would be to provide a system and method that allows a software application operating on network nodes to initiate a migration to other network nodes based on the power reserve capacity characteristics of the network nodes (Barrett page 2, fourth paragraph; and ¶0056, i.e., note that software applications include “Virtual Machines” (VMs)).
As to claim 5, Kodama as modified by Barrett also teaches the virtual machine power consumption prediction according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to predict a future power consumption of the virtual machine using accumulated data of time-series power consumption of the virtual machine (Barrett page 4, last paragraph).
Claim 7 recites the limitations substantially similar to those of claim 1 and is similarly rejected.
Claim 8 corresponds to claim 7 and is similarly rejected.
Claim(s) 2-3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kodama in view of Barrett, and further in view of Mobius et al. (NPL, “Power Consumption Estimation Models for Processors, Virtual Machines, and Servers”, hereinafter “Mobius”).
As to claim 2, Kodama as modified by Barrett teaches the virtual machine power consumption prediction device according to claim 1, but fails to explicitly teach wherein the processor is configured to prepare, for each of the plurality of servers, a relational expression indicating a relationship between the power consumption of the server and the total power consumption of a host and each virtual machine running on the server and calculate the power consumption using a plurality of relational expressions of the plurality of servers. However, in the same field of endeavor, Mobius teaches the processor is configured to prepare, for each of the plurality of servers, a relational expression indicating a relationship between the power consumption of the server and the total power consumption of a host and each virtual machine running on the server and calculate the power consumption using a plurality of relational expressions of the plurality of servers (Mobius page 7 section 5 VM Models, right column). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Kodama and Barrett by incorporating the teachings of Mobius. The motivation would be to enable better organizing and scheduling moving virtual machines from one physical machine to another with the manifest advantage of utilizing computing resources efficiently (Mobius page 7 section 5 VM Models, left column, first paragraph).
As to claim 3, Kodama as modified by Barrett teaches the virtual machine power consumption prediction device according to claim 1, but fails to explicitly teach wherein the processor is configured to prepare, for each of a plurality of times in one server, a relational expression indicating a relationship between the power consumption of the server and the sum of the power consumption of the host and each virtual machine running on the server and calculate the power consumption using a plurality of relational expressions at the plurality of times. However, in the same field of endeavor, Mobius teaches the processor is configured to prepare, for each of a plurality of times in one server, a relational expression indicating a relationship between the power consumption of the server and the sum of the power consumption of the host and each virtual machine running on the server and calculate the power consumption using a plurality of relational expressions at the plurality of times (Mobius page 7 section 5 VM Models, right column). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Kodama and Barrett by incorporating the teachings of Mobius. The motivation would be to enable better organizing and scheduling moving virtual machines from one physical machine to another with the manifest advantage of utilizing computing resources efficiently (Mobius page 7 section 5 VM Models, left column, first paragraph).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 and 6 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.
The features of the claim limitations included in claims 4 and 6 in combination with the other limitations recited in the context of their respective base claim(s) is allowable subject matter.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See Form PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALEXANDER KHONG whose telephone number is (571)270-7127. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8am-5pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Charles Rones can be reached on (571)272-4085. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ALEXANDER KHONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2168
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