DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the Application Ser. No. 18/926,732 filed on October 25, 2024. Claims 1-18 are pending and are examined.
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 .
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 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.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they do not include the following reference sign(s) mentioned in the description:
the reference sign “410” recited in paragraph [0030] is not shown in the drawings.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
the reference sign “102a-n” recited in line3 of paragraph [0014] of the specification should be “102”; and
the second recitation of reference sign “502” recited in line 5 of paragraph [0031] of the specification should be “500”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Information Disclosure Statement
Applicant’s submission of the Information Disclosure Statement dated March 13, 2026, is acknowledged by the Examiner and the cited references have been considered in the examination of the claims now pending (see attached PTO-1449).
Claim Objections
The claims are objected to because of the following informalities:
regarding Claim 1, the term “traffic being served over the link and associated with the one or more virtual machines” recited in lines 6-7 should be “traffic associated with the one or more virtual machines being served over the link”;
regarding Claim 3, the term “the fair share” recited in line 4 should be “the fair share of bandwidth on the link”, the term “the traffic being served over the link by the virtual machine” recited in lines 6-7 should be “the traffic of the virtual machine being served over the link”, and the term “its fair share for the link” recited in lines 7-8 should be “the fair share of bandwidth on the link”;
regarding Claim 15, the term “the fair share computed for the virtual machine on the link” recited in lines 4-5 should be “the fair share of bandwidth on the link”, the term “the traffic being served over the link by the virtual machine” recited in line 6 should be “the traffic of the virtual machine being served over the link”, and the term “its fair share for the link” recited in line 7 should be “the fair share of bandwidth on the link”;
regarding Claim 17, the term “the network” recited in line 3 should be “the overlay network” and the term “the portion of the link capacity” recited in line 11 should be “the portion of the capacity of the link”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(b)
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.
Claims 6 and 12-18 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.
Claim 6 recites the limitation “wherein the one or more characteristics of a virtual machine are one of: a virtual machine plan value, a cost, a number of virtual CPUs, an amount of RAM, and a bandwidth cap, and combinations thereof” in lines 1-3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for the term “the one or more characteristics of a virtual machine” in the claim.
The Examiner suggests amending Claim 6 to depend from Claim 5 to overcome the rejection.
Claim 12 recites the limitation “wherein the data center is associated with a collection of edge regions that together comprise an Equivalence-Class-Of-Region (ECOR)” in lines 8-10. There is insufficient antecedent basis for the term “the data center” in the claim.
The Examiner suggests amending Claim 12 to depend from Claim 1 to overcome the rejection.
Claim 13 recites the limitation “monitor traffic being served over the link and associated with the one or more virtual machines, the traffic corresponding to at least the non-controllable traffic” in lines 1-3. There is insufficient antecedent basis for the term “the one or more virtual machines” in the claim.
Dependent Claims 13-16 are rejected for the reasons presented above with respect to rejected Claim 1 in view of their dependence thereon.
The Examiner suggests amending Claim 13 to replace the term “the one or more virtual machines” recited in lines 9-10 with “one or more virtual machines” to overcome the rejection.
Additionally, Claim 14 recites the limitation “determine whether the non-controllable traffic associated with the one or more virtual machines is within a configurable threshold of the link capacity” in lines 3-4. There is insufficient antecedent basis for the term “the link capacity” in the claim.
The Examiner suggests amending Claim 14 to replace the term “the link capacity” recited in line 4 with “a link capacity” to overcome the rejection.
Claim 17 recites the limitation “monitoring the traffic being served over the link and associated with the set of virtual machines” in lines 8-9. There is insufficient antecedent basis for the term “the traffic being served over the link and associated with the set of virtual machines” in the claim.
Dependent Claim 18 is rejected for the reasons presented above with respect to rejected Claim 17 in view of its dependence thereon.
The Examiner suggests amending Claim 18 to replace the term “the traffic being served over the link and associated with the set of virtual machines” recited in lines 8-9 with “traffic associated with the set of virtual machines being served over the link” to overcome the rejection.
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.
Claims 1, 9-13, 17 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Greenberg et al., Pub. No. US 2013/0003538 A1, hereby “Greenberg”, in view of Guim Bernat et al., Pub. No. US 2021/0144517 A1, hereby “Guim Bernat”.
Regarding Claim 1, Greenberg discloses “A method for traffic management over a link of a set of one or more links that is utilized for traffic... (Greenberg paragraphs 5, 13 and 19: a method regulating how network links are shared by cloud tenants), comprising:
deploying a cloud compute control plane to a network host, the network host being one of a set of distributed hosts comprising a multi-tenant shared infrastructure (Greenberg figs. 1 and 2 and paragraphs 13-15 and 21: each server 106 of multi-tenant cloud 100 executes rate controller 130, which is a process or thread executing in a hypervisor or kernel of server 106 under control of the cloud operator);
instantiating one or more virtual machines on the network host (Greenberg figs. 1 and 2 and paragraphs 13-15 and 21: each server 106 hosts one or more execution units 108, e.g., virtual machines, of one or more tenants);
monitoring traffic being served over the link and associated with the one or more virtual machines, the traffic corresponding to at least the non-controllable traffic (Greenberg figs. 1 and 2 and paragraphs 21-27 and 30: rate controller 130 receives network usage data 140 indicative of the traffic over one or more network links, wherein the traffic includes flows 110 originated by the virtual machines); and
throttling the non-controllable traffic associated with the one or more virtual machines on the link to ensure that the link does not become congested for the controllable traffic (Greenberg figs. 1 and 2 and paragraphs 21-27 and 30: rate controller 130 throttles the transmission rate of one or more virtual machines, e.g., to prevent links from becoming congested).”
However, while Greenberg discloses that the cloud comprises a plurality of servers interconnected by a network comprising a plurality of links (Greenberg paragraph 14), Greenberg does not explicitly disclose “A method for traffic management over a link of a set of one or more links that is utilized for traffic that is a blend of controllable traffic and non-controllable traffic (emphasis added)”.
In a related field of endeavor, Guim Bernat discloses using edge nodes of a content delivery network (CDN) to host datacenters of a cloud-based service (Guim Bernat figs. 3 and 5 and paragraphs 118, 142 and 690-691: nodes 550 of edge cloud 110 provide cached content from a distributed content delivery network while other compute and storage resources on the nodes may be used to execute other services and fulfill other workloads, e.g., workloads of a cloud datacenter – while not explicitly stated, the links connecting the nodes of the edge cloud are utilized to carry both CDN and cloud datacenter traffic, i.e., controllable and non-controllable traffic).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Greenberg to utilize resources of a CDN to host the servers of the cloud datacenter as taught by Guim Bernat. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine utilizing resources of a CDN to host the servers of the cloud datacenter to achieve low-latency delivery of the cloud-based services (Guim Bernat paragraph 690).
Regarding Claim 9, the combination of Greenberg and Guim Bernat discloses all of the limitations of Claim 1.
Additionally, Greenberg discloses “prioritizing bandwidth on the link for a first virtual machine over a second virtual machine when the traffic is throttled, wherein the first virtual machine has higher bandwidth allowance and requirement than the second virtual machine as reflected in a virtual machine plan size or vCPU count (Greenberg paragraphs 5, 19, 22-24, 27 and 31: rate controller 130 updates the share of link capacity allocated to a virtual machine based on network usage data 140 and the weight 136 assigned to the virtual machine, wherein the weight may be proportional to the size or price of the VM).”
Regarding Claim 10, the combination of Greenberg and Guim Bernat discloses all of the limitations of Claim 1.
Additionally, Greenberg discloses “wherein the virtual machines are instantiated on the network host for multiple distinct tenants (Greenberg fig. 1 and paragraphs 13-15, 19-21 and 24: each server 106 hosts VMs for one or more tenants).
Regarding Claim 11, the combination of Greenberg and Guim Bernat discloses all of the limitations of Claim 1.
Additionally, Greenberg discloses “wherein the link is an egress link of a data center (Greenberg figs. 1 and 2 and paragraphs 21-27 and 30: rate controller 130 throttles the transmission rate of one or more virtual machines, e.g., to prevent links from becoming congested – while not explicitly stated, an egress link is inferred by the throttling the transmission rate of one or more virtual machines).”
Regarding Claim 12, the combination of Greenberg and Guim Bernat discloses all of the limitations of Claim 1.
Additionally, Guim Bernat discloses “wherein the data center is associated with a collection of edge regions that together comprise an Equivalence-Class-Of-Region (ECOR) (Guim Bernat figs. 3, 5 and 12 and paragraphs 118-121, 142 and 160-162: a plurality of edge gateway nodes 312 are associated with core data center 332 which provides access to global network cloud 342, e.g., the Internet).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Greenberg to utilize resources of a CDN to host the servers of the cloud datacenter as taught by Guim Bernat for the reasons set forth in the rejection of Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 13, Greenberg discloses “An apparatus (Greenberg figs. 1, 2 and 8 and paragraphs 14-16, 21, 25 and 70: server 106 implemented by computer 300), comprising:
one or more hardware processors (Greenberg fig. 8 and paragraph 70: processor 301);
computer memory holding computer program instructions, the computer program instructions comprising program code configured to provide traffic management over a link of a set of one or more links... (Greenberg figs. 1, 2 and 8 and paragraphs 14-16, 21, 25 and 70: memory 302 storing program instructions executable by the processor to implement rate controller 130 for regulating traffic between nodes of a cloud datacenter hosting multiple tenants), the program code configured to:
monitor traffic being served over the link and associated with the one or more virtual machines, the traffic corresponding to at least the non-controllable traffic (Greenberg figs. 1 and 2 and paragraphs 21-27 and 30: rate controller 130 receives network usage data 140 indicative of the traffic over one or more network links, wherein the traffic includes flows 110 originated by the virtual machines); and
throttle the non-controllable traffic associated with the one or more virtual machines on the link to ensure that the link does not become congested for the controllable traffic (Greenberg figs. 1 and 2 and paragraphs 21-27 and 30: rate controller 130 throttles the transmission rate of one or more virtual machines, e.g., to prevent links from becoming congested).”
However, while Greenberg discloses that the cloud comprises a plurality of servers interconnected by a network comprising a plurality of links (Greenberg paragraph 14), Greenberg does not explicitly disclose “computer memory holding computer program instructions, the computer program instructions comprising program code configured to provide traffic management over a link of a set of one or more links that is utilized for traffic that is a blend of controllable traffic and non-controllable traffic (emphasis added)”.
In a related field of endeavor, Guim Bernat discloses using edge nodes of a content delivery network (CDN) to host datacenters of a cloud-based service (Guim Bernat figs. 3 and 5 and paragraphs 118, 142 and 690-691: nodes 550 of edge cloud 110 provide cached content from a distributed content delivery network while other compute and storage resources on the nodes may be used to execute other services and fulfill other workloads, e.g., workloads of a cloud datacenter – while not explicitly stated, the links connecting the nodes of the edge cloud are utilized to carry both CDN and cloud datacenter traffic, i.e., controllable and non-controllable traffic).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the apparatus of Greenberg to utilize resources of a CDN to host the servers of the cloud datacenter as taught by Guim Bernat. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine utilizing resources of a CDN to host the servers of the cloud datacenter to achieve low-latency delivery of the cloud-based services (Guim Bernat paragraph 690).
Regarding Claim 17, Greenberg discloses “A method for traffic management over a link... (Greenberg paragraphs 5, 13 and 19: a method regulating how network links are shared by cloud tenants), comprising:
deploying a cloud compute control plane to a network host, the network host being one of a set of distributed hosts comprising a multi-tenant shared infrastructure (Greenberg figs. 1 and 2 and paragraphs 13-15 and 21: each server 106 of multi-tenant cloud 100 executes rate controller 130, which is a process or thread executing in a hypervisor or kernel of server 106 under control of the cloud operator);
instantiating a set of virtual machines on the network host (Greenberg figs. 1 and 2 and paragraphs 13-15 and 21: each server 106 hosts one or more execution units 108, e.g., virtual machines, of one or more tenants);
monitoring the traffic being served over the link and associated with the set of virtual machines (Greenberg figs. 1 and 2 and paragraphs 21-27 and 30: rate controller 130 receives network usage data 140 indicative of the traffic over one or more network links, wherein the traffic includes flows 110 originated by the virtual machines); and
in response to the monitoring, selectively throttling the traffic associated with the set of virtual machines on the link by adjusting how the portion of the link capacity is allocated to at least one or more of the virtual machines of the set (Greenberg paragraphs 5, 22-24, and 27: rate controller 130 throttles traffic from the virtual machines based on a share of the link capacity determined for each of the virtual machines).”
However, while Greenberg discloses that the cloud comprises a plurality of servers interconnected by a network comprising a plurality of links (Greenberg paragraph 14), Greenberg does not explicitly disclose “A method for traffic management over a link associated with an overlay network, wherein at least a portion of a capacity of the link is anticipated to be required to handle traffic that is not directly controllable by a traffic manager associated with the network (emphasis added)”.
In a related field of endeavor, Guim Bernat discloses using edge nodes of a content delivery network (CDN) to host datacenters of a cloud-based service (Guim Bernat figs. 3 and 5 and paragraphs 118, 142 and 690-691: nodes 550 of edge cloud 110 provide cached content from a distributed content delivery network while other compute and storage resources on the nodes may be used to execute other services and fulfill other workloads, e.g., workloads of a cloud datacenter – while not explicitly stated, the links connecting the nodes of the edge cloud are utilized to carry both CDN and cloud datacenter traffic, i.e., controllable and non-controllable traffic).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Greenberg to utilize resources of a CDN to host the servers of the cloud datacenter as taught by Guim Bernat. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine utilizing resources of a CDN to host the servers of the cloud datacenter to achieve low-latency delivery of the cloud-based services (Guim Bernat paragraph 690).
Regarding Claim 18, the combination of Greenberg and Guim Bernat discloses all of the limitations of Claim 17.
Additionally, Greenberg discloses “wherein each of the virtual machines of the set is allocated a determined fair share for that virtual machine (Greenberg paragraphs 5, 22-24, 27, 30-31 and 38: rate controller 130 determines a fair share of link capacity to allocate to each virtual machine).”
Claims 2-8 and 14-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Greenberg and Guim Bernat in view of Jain et al., Pat. No. US 8,964,546 B1, hereby “Jain”.
Regarding Claim 2, the combination of Greenberg and Guim Bernat discloses all of the limitations of Claim 1.
However, while Greenberg discloses throttling the transmission rate of one or more virtual machines based on the network usage data (Greenberg paragraphs 23-27), Greenberg does not explicitly disclose “defining a link capacity for the one or more virtual machines;
determining whether the non-controllable traffic associated with the one or more virtual machines is within a configurable threshold of the link capacity; and
based on a determination that the non-controllable traffic associated with the one or more virtual machines is within the configurable threshold of the link capacity, raising an alert.”
In the same field of endeavor, Jain discloses “defining a link capacity... (Jain figs. 1B and 4; column 3, lines 57-62; and column 9, lines 20-24: computing server 110 determines the link capacity);
determining whether the non-controllable traffic... is within a configurable threshold of the link capacity (Jain figs. 1B and 4; column 9, lines 17-20; and column 9, lines 30-32: computing server 110 determines whether the total amount of traffic exceeds a threshold percentage of the determined link capacity); and
based on a determination that the non-controllable traffic... is within the configurable threshold of the link capacity, raising an alert (Jain figs. 1B and 4; and column 9, lines 35-45: computing server 110 reduces the amount of egress traffic from at least one origin endpoint, e.g., server 108, in response to determining the total amount of traffic exceeds the threshold percentage of the determined link capacity –while not explicitly stated, notifying or ‘alerting’ the origin endpoint to reduce the amount of egress traffic is inferred).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Greenberg, as modified by Guim Bernat, to determine a link capacity and to throttle the transmission rate of one or more virtual machines in response to determining the total amount of traffic exceeds a threshold percentage of the determined link capacity as taught by Jain. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine determining a link capacity and throttling the transmission rate of one or more virtual machines in response to determining the total amount of traffic exceeds a threshold percentage of the determined link capacity to prevent delays and possible loss of data packets (Jain column 1, lines 25-28).
Regarding Claim 3, the combination of Greenberg, Guim Bernat and Jain discloses all of the limitations of Claim 2.
Additionally, Greenberg, as modified by Jain, discloses “in response to the alert, and for each of the one or more virtual machines:
computing a fair share of bandwidth on the link for the virtual machine (Greenberg paragraphs 5, 22-24, 27, 30-31 and 38: rate controller 130 determines a fair share of link capacity to allocate to each virtual machine);
identifying whether the virtual machine is egressing more than the fair share computed for the virtual machine (Greenberg paragraphs 5 and 23-27: rate controller 130 throttles traffic from virtual machine based on the determined share of the link capacity – determining that the transmission rate of the virtual machine exceeds its share of the link capacity is inferred); and
applying a rate limit to the traffic being served over the link by the virtual machine when the virtual machine is identified as egressing more than its fair share for the link (Greenberg paragraphs 5 and 23-27: rate controller 130 throttles traffic from virtual machine based on the determined share of the link capacity – determining that the transmission rate of the virtual machine exceeds its share of the link capacity is inferred).”
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Greenberg, Guim Bernat and Jain discloses all of the limitations of Claim 3.
Additionally, Greenberg discloses “modifying at least one rate limit previously applied to a virtual machine upon a determination that the monitored traffic is within the configurable threshold of the link capacity (Greenberg paragraphs 5, 19, 24, 27 and 45: rate controller 130 updates the share of link capacity allocated to a virtual machine based on network usage data 140 indicating a degree of congestion or saturation of the link).”
Regarding Claim 5, the combination of Greenberg, Guim Bernat and Jain discloses all of the limitations of Claim 3.
Additionally, Greenberg discloses “wherein the fair share of the bandwidth on the link is computed based on the link capacity, a current virtual machine utilization of the link, and one or more characteristics of a virtual machine (Greenberg paragraphs 5, 19, 22-24, 27, 30-31 and 38: the fair share of link capacity allocated to a virtual machine is determined based on the link capacity, network usage data 140 and the weight 136 assigned to the virtual machine, wherein the weight may be proportional to the size or price of the VM).”
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of Greenberg, Guim Bernat and Jain discloses all of the limitations of Claim 4.
Additionally, Greenberg discloses “wherein the one or more characteristics of a virtual machine are one of: a virtual machine plan value, a cost, a number of virtual CPUs, an amount of RAM, and a bandwidth cap, and combinations thereof (Greenberg paragraphs 5, 22 and 31: weight 136 assigned to an execution unit 108 may be based on the size or price of the VM).”
Regarding Claim 7, the combination of Greenberg, Guim Bernat and Jain discloses all of the limitations of Claim 4.
Additionally, Guim Bernat discloses “wherein the multi-tenant shared infrastructure is a content delivery network, the host is an edge machine, and the controllable traffic is associated with customers of the content delivery network (Guim Bernat figs. 3 and 5 and paragraphs 118, 142 and 690-691: nodes 550 of edge cloud 110 provide cached content from a distributed content delivery network while other compute and storage resources on the nodes may be used to execute other services and fulfill other workloads, e.g., workloads of a cloud datacenter).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the apparatus of Greenberg to utilize resources of a CDN to host the servers of the cloud datacenter as taught by Guim Bernat for the reasons set forth in the rejection of Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 8, the combination of Greenberg, Guim Bernat and Jain discloses all of the limitations of Claim 2.
Additionally, Jain discloses “wherein... are permitted to operate without bandwidth constraints while the monitored traffic is below the configurable threshold of the link capacity (Jain fig. 4 and column 9, lines 59-64: computing server 110 returns to the step of computing the total amount of traffic that traverses the link when it is determined that the total traffic does not exceed the threshold percentage of the link capacity – while not explicitly stated, no reduction of the egress traffic from the origin endpoints is inferred).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Greenberg, as modified by Guim Bernat, to determine a link capacity and to throttle the transmission rate of one or more virtual machines in response to determining the total amount of traffic exceeds a threshold percentage of the determined link capacity as taught by Jain for the reasons set forth in the rejection of Claim 2 is inferred.
Insofar as it recites similar claim elements, Claim 14 is rejected for substantially the same reasons presented above with respect to Claim 2.
Insofar as it recites similar claim elements, Claim 15 is rejected for substantially the same reasons presented above with respect to Claim 3.
Regarding Claim 16, the combination of Greenberg, Guim Bernat and Jain discloses all of the limitations of Claim 15.
Additionally, Greenberg discloses “wherein the rate limit is applied using an operating system traffic control subsystem (Greenberg fig. 2 and paragraph 21: rate controller 130 is a thread or process executing on the server 106, for example, in a hypervisor or kernel).”
Conclusion
A shortened statutory period for reply to this action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. An extension of time may be obtained under 37 CFR 1.136(a). However, in no event, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this action.
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/WILLIAM C MCBETH/Examiner, Art Unit 2449
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