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 .
The Preliminary Amendment received 12/27/2024 has been entered; claims 1-15 & 17-21 have been presented and pending in the application.
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.
Claims 1-15 & 17-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over HAN et al. (US 2023/0403326 A1).
Examiner relies on the entire teachings of the HAN reference for this rejection; the examiner kindly advises applicant to carefully consider the entire teachings of the HAN to better understand the examiner’s position and the interpretation applied to the claimed invention.
The HAN reference teaches, when the examiner applies Broadest Reasonable Interpretation, functionally and/or operationally equivalent limitations of the claimed invention as follows:
CLAIMS 1-15 & 17-21
HAN REF (emphasis added)
1.(Currently Amended) A method of controlling a read or write operation for disk data,
Fig 11, “IO write” …”IO read” & “Storage apparatus” & par 3, “SSD”; see also Fig 11 with accompanying description, “SEND MESSAGE (IO write command” and/or “SEND MESSAGE (IO data)”
applied to a front-end shared card, wherein a first end of the front-end shared card is connected with a host through M links, a second end of the front-end shared card is connected with a disk through N disk controllers,
fig 13, par 153, “the network interface card 112 of the storage apparatus 11 communicates with a network interface card 121 of the host client 12 by using the shared connector 1123, and establishes a QP connection to one QP of the host client 12”; the examiner notes that the combined teachings of the 112 & 121 teach the connection to a host
the front-end shared card and each of the disk controllers are connected through a built-in socket, and M and N are integers greater than 1; and the method comprises:
fig 13, par 150, “shared connector 1123 may be an …chip module…not limited in this application”; the examiner notes that the claimed function of connected through is taught by the shared connector 1123 of NIC 112 in combination Controller 111
receiving a read or write task request of the host;
Fig 11 with accompanying description, “SEND MESSAGE (IO write command” and/or “SEND MESSAGE (IO data)”
determining a target disk controller from the N disk controllers based on the read or write task request; and
par 156, “the first packet of an IO command request to a controller 111 that works properly for storage, and stores a correspondence between the first packet and the controller 111, so that different IO command requests and corresponding data messages from one host client 12 can be distributed to different controller for parallel processing”; the examiner notes that the controller 111 performs determination interactively with the shared connector 1123
controlling, based on the read or write task request, the target disk controller to perform a read or write operation on the disk.
Fig 11 with accompanying description, “Perform persistent storage on the IO data” or “Obtain IO data”
2. (Original) The method according to claim 1, wherein the receiving a read or write task request of the host comprises: scanning each of the disk controllers connected with the front-end shared card, and establishing a communication connection between the front-end shared card and each of the disk controllers; and
Obvious from the teachings of fig 11, par 137, “host client first discovers the storage apparatus in a network and establishes a connection to the storage apparatus”
receiving the read or write task request of the host after establishing a communication connection between the front-end shared card and the host.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 11 with accompanying description, “SEND MESSAGE (IO write command” and/or “SEND MESSAGE (IO data)” after “Discover and establish a connection”
3. (Original) The method according to claim 2, wherein the receiving the read or write task request of the host after establishing the communication connection between the front-end shared card and the host comprises: establishing the communication connection between the front-end shared card and the host after receiving a communication connection request of the host; and
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 11 with accompanying description, “SEND MESSAGE (IO write command” and/or “SEND MESSAGE (IO data)” after “Discover and establish a connection”
receiving the read or write task request of the host.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 11 with accompanying description, “RDMA READ response message (IO data)” and “RDMA WRITE MESSAGE (IO data)”
4. (Original) The method according to claim 1, wherein the receiving a read or write task request of the host comprises: establishing a request queue corresponding to the host; and reading the read or write task request that is written in the request queue by the host.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 12-13 with accompanying description, “QP”, see also figs 2-3 with accompanying description, par 88, “posts a work queue element (WQE) to an SQ in a QP” & par 89, “posts a WQE to an RQ in the QP”
5. (Original) The method according to claim 1, wherein the receiving a read or write task request of the host comprises: establishing instruction queues corresponding to the disk controllers on a one-to- one basis; and
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 3, par 90, “QP connection of the reliable connection only supports a one-to-one communication model”
receiving the read or write task request of the host; the controlling, based on the read or write task request,
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 11 with accompanying description, “RDMA READ response message (IO data)” and “RDMA WRITE MESSAGE (IO data)”
the target disk controller to perform a read or write operation on the disk comprises:
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 11 with accompanying description, “Perform persistent storage on the IO data” or “Obtain IO data”
converting the read or write task request into a read or write operation instruction; and writing the read or write operation instruction into an instruction queue corresponding to the target disk controller, to cause the target disk controller to read the read or write operation instruction in the instruction queue and perform the read or write operation on the disk.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 4-10 with accompanying description & par 116-136 with accompanying description, RDMA write operation or RDMA read operation; the examiner notes the converting is taught by more detailed operations performed by RDMA write/read operations of the paragraph 116-136
6. (Original) The method according to claim 5, wherein after establishing the instruction queues corresponding to the disk controllers on a one-to-one basis, the method further comprises:
establishing back-end feedback queues corresponding to the disk controllers on a one-to-one basis, wherein the target disk controller is further configured to write a read or write feedback signal into a back-end feedback queue corresponding to the target disk controller after the read or write operation instruction is completed;
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 4-10 with accompanying description, “Acknowledgement packet” and/or “response messages” of figure & par 116-136 with accompanying description of RDMA write operation or RDMA read operation
after writing the read or write operation instruction into the instruction queue corresponding to the target disk controller, to cause the target disk controller to read the read or write operation instruction in the instruction queue and perform the read or write operation on the disk, the method further comprises: reading the back-end feedback queue corresponding to the target disk controller to acquire the read or write feedback signal of the target disk controller.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 4-10 with accompanying description, “Acknowledgement packet” and/or “response messages” of figure & par 116-136 with accompanying description of RDMA write operation or RDMA read operation
7. (Original) The method according to claim 6, wherein after establishing the instruction queues corresponding to the disk controllers on a one-to-one basis, the method further comprises: establishing a front-end feedback queue corresponding to the host;
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 4-10 with accompanying description, “Acknowledgement packet” and/or “response messages” of figure & par 116-136 with accompanying description of RDMA write operation or RDMA read operation
after reading the back-end feedback queue corresponding to the target disk controller to acquire the read or write feedback signal of the target disk controller, the method further comprises: writing the read or write feedback signal into the front-end feedback queue corresponding to the host to cause the host to acquire the read or write feedback signal through the front-end feedback queue.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 4-10 with accompanying description, “Acknowledgement packet” and/or “response messages” of figure & par 116-136 with accompanying description of RDMA write operation or RDMA read operation
8. (Original) The method according to claim 1, wherein the receiving a read or write task request of the host comprises: establishing a response queue corresponding to the host; and
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 3, par 90, “QP connection of the reliable connection only supports a one-to-one communication model”
receiving the read or write task request of the host; after controlling, based on the read or write task request, the target disk controller to perform a read or write operation on the disk, the method further comprises:
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 11 with accompanying description, “RDMA READ response message (IO data)” and “RDMA WRITE MESSAGE (IO data)”
writing data to be read sent by the target disk controller into the response queue to cause the host to read the data to be read corresponding to the read or write task request from the response queue.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 4-10 with accompanying description, “Acknowledgement packet” and/or “response messages” of figure & par 116-136 with accompanying description of RDMA write operation or RDMA read operation
9. (Currently Amended) The method according to claim 1, wherein the disk comprises N disk regions corresponding to the N disk controllers
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 3, par 90, “QP connection of the reliable connection only supports a one-to-one communication model”
the determining a target disk controller from the N disk controllers based on the read or write task request comprises: determining a target disk region from the N disk regions corresponding to the read or write task request; and determining the target disk controller corresponding to the target disk region.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 4-10 with accompanying description, “Acknowledgement packet” and/or “response messages” of figure & par 116-136 with accompanying description, RDMA write operation or RDMA read operation, see also par 119, “RDMA WRITE message…includes the data to be written to the responder, the virtual address of the storage space of the responder” & par 130, “RDMA READ message…includes a virtual address of storage space of the responder…”
10. (Original) The method according to claim 1, wherein before receiving the read or write task request of the host, the method further comprises: determining a target link of which a connection state is normal among the links between the front-end shared card and the host;
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 11, par 139 & 140, “For a reliable connection, the storage apparatus may send an acknowledgement packet of the SEND message to the host client…”
and the receiving a read or write task request of the host comprises: receiving the read or write task request of the host through the target link.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 11 with accompanying description, “SEND MESSAGE (IO write command” and/or “SEND MESSAGE (IO data)”
11. (Original) The method according to claim 10, wherein the determining a target link of which a connection state is normal among the links between the front-end shared card and the host comprises: detecting a connection state of each of the links between the front-end shared card and the host; and determining the target link of which the connection state is normal.
Obvious from the teachings of Par 146, “When a controller is faulty, the host client disconnects a QP connection between the host client and the controller …and user may aware of the fault”’; par 147, “after a controller is faulty, the NIC distributes a packet sent to the faulty controller to a controller that works”
12. (Original) The method according to claim 11, wherein after detecting the connection state of each of the links between the front-end shared card and the host, the method further comprises: determining whether there is an abnormal link of which the connection state is abnormal among the links; and in a case where it is determined that there is an abnormal link of which the connection state is abnormal among the links, controlling a prompt module for providing a prompt.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 13, par 165, “when a controller 111 is faulty, if one controller 111 works properly, subsequent messages may be redirected and distributed to the controller 111 that works”; see also Par 146, “When a controller is faulty, the host client disconnects a QP connection between the host client and the controller …and user may aware of the fault”; the examiner notes that alerting or prompting is one of obvious variations for the user to be aware of the fault teachings, also the prompting error condition, via sight and/or sound is well-known and common practices in the industry without having any inventive concept
13. (Original) The method according to claim 12, wherein the prompt module is a voice prompt module and/or a light prompt module; and the controlling a prompt module for providing a prompt comprises: controlling the voice prompt module for providing a voice prompt and/or controlling the light prompt module for providing a light prompt.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 13, par 165, “when a controller 111 is faulty, if one controller 111 works properly, subsequent messages may be redirected and distributed to the controller 111 that works”; see also Par 146, “When a controller is faulty, the host client disconnects a QP connection between the host client and the controller …and user may aware of the fault”; the examiner notes that alerting or prompting is one of obvious variations for the user to be aware of the fault teachings, also the prompting error condition, via sight and/or sound is well-known and common practices in the industry without having any inventive concept
14. (Original) The method according to claim 13, wherein the voice prompt module is a buzzer, and the light prompt module is a light emitting diode.
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 13, par 165, “when a controller 111 is faulty, if one controller 111 works properly, subsequent messages may be redirected and distributed to the controller 111 that works”; see also Par 146, “When a controller is faulty, the host client disconnects a QP connection between the host client and the controller …and user may aware of the fault”; the examiner notes that alerting or prompting is one of obvious variations for the user to be aware of the fault teachings, also the prompting error condition, via sight and/or sound is well-known and common practices in the industry without having any inventive concept
15. (Currently Amended) The method according to claim 1,wherein the controlling, based on the read or write task request, the target disk controller to perform a read or write operation on the disk comprises: converting, based on the
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 4-10 with accompanying description & par 116-136 with accompanying description, RDMA write operation or RDMA read operation; the examiner notes the converting is taught by more detailed operations performed by RDMA write/read operations of the paragraph 116-136
converting, based on the read
Obvious from the teachings of Fig 4-10 with accompanying description & par 116-136 with accompanying description, RDMA write operation or RDMA read operation; the examiner notes the converting is taught by more detailed operations performed by RDMA write/read operations of the paragraph 116-136
17. (Currently Amended) An apparatus of controlling a read or write operation for disk data, comprising a processor, a memory, a communications interface, and a communications bus, wherein the processor, the memory, and the communications interface communicate with each other via the communications bus; and the memory is configured to store at least one executable instruction, and the executable instruction enables the processor to perform operations of the disk data read or write control method according to claim 1.
Obvious from Fig 13 with accompanying description, also well-known & common practices in the art
18. (Original) A front-end shared card, comprising the apparatus of controlling a read or write operation for disk data according to claim 17.
Obvious from the teachings of fig 13, par 150, “shared connector 1123 may be an …chip module…not limited in this application”; the examiner notes that the claimed function of connected through is taught by the shared connector 1123
19. (Original) The front-end shared card according to claim 18, wherein a first end of the front-end shared card is connected with a host through M links, a second end is connected with a disk through N disk controllers, the front-end shared card and each of the disk controllers are connected through a built-in socket, and M and N are integers greater than 1.
Obvious from the teachings of fig 13, par 153, “the network interface card 112 of the storage apparatus 11 communicates with a network interface card 121 of the host client 12 by using the shared connector 1123. And establishes a QP connection to one QP of the host client 12”; the examiner notes that the combined teachings of the 112 & 121 teach the connection to a host
20. (Currently Amended) A non-volatile readable storage medium, having a computer program stored thereon, wherein the computer program implements, when being operated by a processor, steps of the method of controlling a read or write operation for disk data according to claim 1.
Obvious from Fig 13 with accompanying description, also well-known & common practices in the art
21. (New) The method according to claim 2, wherein the controlling, based on the read or write task request, the target disk controller to perform a read or write operation on the disk comprises: converting, based on the write task request, a first format of data to be written corresponding to the write task request into a second format corresponding to the target disk controller, to cause the target disk controller to write the data to be written in the second format into the disk; or converting, based on the read task request, a second format of data to be read corresponding to the read task request into a first format corresponding to the host, to cause the host to read the data to be read in the first format corresponding to the host and sent by the target disk controller.
The teachings of the claim 15 are similarly applied
The examiner notes that the HAN reference does not expressly or identically label the claimed “front-end shared card”; however, the HAN reference does teach NICs 112s in combination with Controllers 111s of the figures 1, 12-13, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33 or 36 with accompanying descriptions that teaches, performs or provides the functional/operational equivalent teachings of the not expressly labeled claimed invention “front-end shared card”, as can be seen from the above detailed teachings. Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one having ordinary skill in the art to add or utilize the combined functions/operations of the NICs 112s & Controllers 111s of the HAN reference teachings into a functional/operational card or device (e.g., shared card or shared device) to come up with the claimed invention for the detailed teachings and the reasons discussed above.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER B SHIN whose telephone number is (571)272-4159. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00-4:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, IDRISS N ALROBAYE can be reached at 571-270-1023. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHRISTOPHER B SHIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2181