DETAILED ACTION
Status of claims:
Claims 1 – 6 are pending.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) was submitted on 10/16/2024. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1 – 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Kurmala (US 11979288).
As per claim 1, an information providing device comprising:
processing circuitry configured to:
generate setting information for making a setting for a communication control device installed in a site of a user in accordance with a notification from the communication control device (A controller 104 may be operable to configure and manage network devices, such as at the primary site 102, and may also manage network devices at the remote sites 132, 134 … the controller 104 can enable switches (communication control device) that include trunk and/or LACP ports, such as switch 108, to be provisioned using ZTP, See Col. 3, Lines 56 – 65 … ZTP is a feature implemented by network devices, such as switches, that allows the devices to be provisioned and configured automatically … When the hardware is powered on (after deployment), the network device sends out a request (notification) through DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) or TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) to get the location of its centrally stored image and configuration, which it downloads and runs, See Col. 6, Line 59 – Col. 7, Line 10); and
transmit the setting information to the communication control device via a first communication network, and, when transmission of the setting information via the first communication network fails, transmit the setting information to the communication control device via a second communication network (In the example deployment shown in FIG. 1, switch 108 is configured to use a link aggregation mechanism, such as trunk ports and/or LACP ports. As referred to herein link aggregation refers to various methods of combining, or aggregating, multiple network connections in parallel. For example, switch 138 can aggregate multiple links for uplink communication to an external network, for example a network at remote site 132 including gateway device 134, in order to increase throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, and to provide redundancy in case one of the links should fail, See Col. 3, Lines 24 - 34).
As per claim 2, the information providing device according to claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to transmit the setting information to the communication control device via the first communication network, which is a fixed communication network, and, when transmission of the setting information via the first communication network fails, transmit the setting information to the communication control device via the second communication network, which is a mobile communication network (Within the primary site 102, a switch 108 is included as one example of a point of access to the network established in primary site 102 for wired client devices 110i-j. Client devices 110i-j may connect to the switch 108 and through the switch 108, may be able to access other devices within the network configuration 100. The client devices 110i-j may also be able to access the network 120, through the switch 108. The client devices 110i-j may communicate with the switch 108 over a wired 112 connection. In the illustrated example, the switch 108 communicates with the controller 104 over a wired 112 connection, though this connection may also be wireless, See Col. 4, Lines 43 - 55).
As per claim 3, an information providing method to be executed by an information providing device, comprising:
generating setting information for making a setting for a communication control device installed in a site of a user in accordance with a notification from the communication control device (A controller 104 may be operable to configure and manage network devices, such as at the primary site 102, and may also manage network devices at the remote sites 132, 134 … the controller 104 can enable switches (communication control device) that include trunk and/or LACP ports, such as switch 108, to be provisioned using ZTP, See Col. 3, Lines 56 – 65 … ZTP is a feature implemented by network devices, such as switches, that allows the devices to be provisioned and configured automatically … When the hardware is powered on (after deployment), the network device sends out a request (notification) through DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) or TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) to get the location of its centrally stored image and configuration, which it downloads and runs, See Col. 6, Line 59 – Col. 7, Line 10); and
transmitting the setting information to the communication control device via a first communication network, and, when transmission via the first communication network fails, transmitting the setting information to the communication control device via a second communication network (In the example deployment shown in FIG. 1, switch 108 is configured to use a link aggregation mechanism, such as trunk ports and/or LACP ports. As referred to herein link aggregation refers to various methods of combining, or aggregating, multiple network connections in parallel. For example, switch 138 can aggregate multiple links for uplink communication to an external network, for example a network at remote site 132 including gateway device 134, in order to increase throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, and to provide redundancy in case one of the links should fail, See Col. 3, Lines 24 - 34).
As per claim 4, a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing therein an information providing program that causes a computer to execute a process comprising:
generating setting information for making a setting for a communication control device installed in a site of a user in accordance with a notification from the communication control device (A controller 104 may be operable to configure and manage network devices, such as at the primary site 102, and may also manage network devices at the remote sites 132, 134 … the controller 104 can enable switches (communication control device) that include trunk and/or LACP ports, such as switch 108, to be provisioned using ZTP, See Col. 3, Lines 56 – 65 … ZTP is a feature implemented by network devices, such as switches, that allows the devices to be provisioned and configured automatically … When the hardware is powered on (after deployment), the network device sends out a request (notification) through DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) or TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) to get the location of its centrally stored image and configuration, which it downloads and runs, See Col. 6, Line 59 – Col. 7, Line 10); and
transmitting the setting information to the communication control device via a first communication network, and, when transmission via the first communication network fails, transmitting the setting information to the communication control device via a second communication network (In the example deployment shown in FIG. 1, switch 108 is configured to use a link aggregation mechanism, such as trunk ports and/or LACP ports. As referred to herein link aggregation refers to various methods of combining, or aggregating, multiple network connections in parallel. For example, switch 138 can aggregate multiple links for uplink communication to an external network, for example a network at remote site 132 including gateway device 134, in order to increase throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, and to provide redundancy in case one of the links should fail, See Col. 3, Lines 24 - 34).
As per claim 5, an information providing system comprising:
a communication control device installed in a site of a user (A controller 104 may be operable to configure and manage network devices, such as at the primary site 102, and may also manage network devices at the remote sites 132, 134 … the controller 104 can enable switches (communication control device) that include trunk and/or LACP ports, such as switch 108, to be provisioned using ZTP, See Col. 3, Lines 56 - 65); and
an information providing device connected to a fixed communication network and a mobile communication network (The branch gateway 220 is communicatively connected to a DHCP server (information providing device) 225 via a switch 215 … the switch 215 is communicatively connected to the network manager 205 that may be remotely located from the switch 215 and branch gateway 220. As a general description, the network manager 205 can be server of a cloud-based service that provides unified network management for wired, wireless (fixed communication network and a mobile communication network), and SD-WAN deployment, and support various management tasks, such as ZTP, See Col. 6, Lines 32 - 58), wherein the communication control device includes:
first processing circuitry configured to:
relay communication between a user device that is housed and a fixed communication network (Within the primary site 102, a switch 108 is included as one example of a point of access to the network established in primary site 102 for wired client devices 110i-j, See Col. 4, Lines 43 - 55);
relay communication between the user device and a mobile communication network (Wireless APs 106a-c are included as another example of a point of access to the network established in primary site 102 for client devices 110a-h, See Col. 4, Lines 56 - 65);
notify the information providing device of information for identifying the communication control device (By leveraging DHCP vendor extensions (e.g., option 60 and option 43) and defining Vendor Class identifiers (VCIs), the disclosed techniques allow ZTP to bring up devices such as Gateways/Switches/Access Points or any other networking devices connected over Static Lag, LACP and/or trunk ports as efficiently and seamlessly as other ports, See Col. 2, Lines 50 - 67); and
make a setting for the communication control device by using setting information provided from the information providing device (A VCI (communication control device) for option 60 can be defined. In the illustrated example, the VCI for option 60 is defined as “ArubaGw.” In response to receiving the DHCP discover message 211, the DHCP server 225 (information providing device) can check the VCI to determine whether the option 60 matches the VCI defined on the DHCP server 225. If there is a match between the VCI of the received option (i.e., option 60 and VCI ArubaGw) and the VCI on the DHCP server 225, the DHCP server 225 will return a return message 226 including an option 43. In the embodiments, the return message 226 is particularly configured to include the configuration (setting) information needed to bring up the branch gateway 220, See Col. 7, Lines 33 - 66), and the information providing device includes:
second processing circuitry configured to:
generate setting information for making a setting for the communication control device in accordance with a notification from the communication control device (ZTP is a feature implemented by network devices, such as switches, that allows the devices to be provisioned and configured automatically … When the hardware is powered on (after deployment), the network device sends out a request (notification) through DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) or TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) to get the location of its centrally stored image and configuration, which it downloads and runs, See Col. 6, Line 59 – Col. 7, Line 10); and
transmit the setting information to the communication control device via the fixed communication network (The network manager 205 can be server of a cloud-based service that provides unified network management for wired (fixed communication network), wireless, and SD-WAN deployment, and support various management tasks, such as ZTP, See Col. 6, Lines 32 – 58 … In response to the branch gateway 220 receiving the response message 226 including option 43 from DHCP server 225, the branch gateway 220 will process the VCI and can program its port as trunk ports, as indicated by the option 43. The branch gateway 220 can communicate this information as part of setup configuration to the network manager 205. Thereafter, network manager 205 can push this information back to branch gateway 220 as part of full configuration sync via ZTP, See Col. 8, Lines 5 - 24), and,
when transmission of the setting information via the fixed communication network fails, transmit the setting information to the communication control device via the mobile communication network (In the example deployment shown in FIG. 1, switch 108 is configured to use a link aggregation mechanism, such as trunk ports and/or LACP ports. As referred to herein link aggregation refers to various methods of combining, or aggregating, multiple network connections in parallel. For example, switch 138 can aggregate multiple links for uplink communication to an external network, for example a network at remote site 132 including gateway device 134, in order to increase throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, and to provide redundancy in case one of the links should fail, See Col. 3, Lines 24 - 34).
As per claim 6, the information providing system according to claim 5, wherein the second processing circuitry is further configured to transmit the setting information to the communication control device by transmitting a packet to the fixed communication network or the mobile communication network without tunneling (According to the standard, when the DHCP server sees a recognizable VCI in a DHCP discover from a DHCP client, it returns the mapped vendor specific information in its DHCP offer to the client as option 43. In the embodiments, option 43 is distinctly configured to include a “type” indication, where the “type” indicates the type of ports that are implemented on the corresponding device. The “type” indication can be set to a value, where the value can be defined to indicate the type of port, See Col. 7, Lines 33 - 66).
Conclusion
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Umar Cheema can be reached at 571-270-3037. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NAZIA NAOREEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2458