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 .
1. This action is responsive to the application filed on 11/01/2024.
2. Claims 1-20 are pending.
3. Claims 1-20 are rejected.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. CN202411481929.0 from the People’s Republic of China, filed on 10/22/2024.
Claim Objections
Claims 8, 9, 18, and 19 are objected to because of the following informalities: claims 8, 9, 18, and 19 contain the acronym L2 and L3. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 1-5, 7, 10-15, 17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Jeffrey Yi Dar Lo et al (US 20250158881 A1), hereinafter “Lo”.
Regarding Claim 1 and Claim 11, Lo discloses an information handling system, comprising:
a central processing unit (CPU) (Lo, Paragraph 0103, one or more processors);
a system memory, coupled to the CPU, including processor executable program instructions that, when executed by the CPU, cause the system to perform a management method for a cloud platform comprising a primary node and a plurality of host nodes (Lo, Paragraph 0105, memory), wherein the method includes:
establishing an original configuration connection (OCC) with a host node to trigger a network configuration task for the host node (Lo, Paragraph 0058, determining new configurations to be distributed to the network devices that have other network configurations);
upon receiving a task identifier (ID) assigned to a network configuration task, sending a new configuration connection (NCC) status query to the host node to monitor a status of the task (Lo, Paragraphs 0066-0068, facilitating execution of network configuration tasks and translating them into workflows, transmitted from the cloud network controller to a network node so feedback for the execution for the status of the action can be provided);
upon detecting a status of completed for the network configuration task, sending a confirmation to the host node (Lo, Paragraphs 0067-0068, transmitting corresponding command or configuration for an action in the workflow to the associated network device);
and responsive to receiving acknowledgement of the confirmation, generating a notification indicating configuration of the new network configuration (Lo, Paragraph 0068, sending feedback to the cloud network controller following the attempted execution of the command or configuration received (e.g., being executed, success, or failure)).
Regarding Claim 2, Lo discloses the method of claim 1 above, further comprising:
responsive to the host node returning a status of failed in reply to the NCC status query for the network configuration task, sending a confirmation to the node agent (Lo, Paragraphs 0068-0069, returning feedback of execution status failure);
and responsive to receiving an acknowledgement of the confirmation from the node agent, triggering an active rollback task for the host node to restore the original network configuration to the host node (Lo, Paragraphs 0068-0069, 0080, after feedback indicates failure, the cloud network controller determines a remedial action or configuration to be executed by the network device. Paragraph 0092, receiving a remedial command or configuration that instructs the network device to perform the remedial action, wherein the remedial action can be tailored to the specific failure, taking into account factors such as, but not limited to, the type of network device, the nature of the action, and/or the details of the failure. Paragraph 0093, perform the remedial action based on the indication of the remedial action (block 750). The attempt to perform the remedial action may involve executing the received remedial command or applying the received remedial configuration).
Regarding Claim 3, Lo discloses the method of claim 2 above, further comprising:
sending an OCC status query for the active rollback task to the host node (Lo, Paragraphs 0091-0092, performing remedial action based on received feedback);
and responsive to detecting successful completion of the rollback task, record failed status of the network configuration task and successful restoration of the original network configuration (Lo, Paragraph 0093, the network device may log the results of the remedial action attempt, which can be useful for future troubleshooting and system improvement efforts).
Regarding Claim 4, Lo discloses the method of claim 2 above, further comprising:
responsive to the host node not returning a task status before a timeout interval expires, sending an NCC node agent information query (Lo, Paragraph 0090, determine if the attempt to perform the action was successful. If not successful, then transmit an indication of the failure to perform the action to the cloud network controller node. Paragraph 0091, when the action was not successfully performed, the process transmits an indication of the failure to perform the action to the network controller node. The feedback can be used by the network controller node to monitor the progress of the network configuration task and to identify any issues that need to be addressed.).
Regarding Claim 5, Lo discloses the method of claim 4 above, further comprising:
responsive to detecting node agent information successfully returned, record failed status of the network configuration task and successful restoration of the original network configuration (Lo, Paragraph 0093, the network device may log the results of the remedial action attempt, which can be useful for future troubleshooting and system improvement efforts).
Regarding Claim 7, Lo discloses the method of claim 1 above, wherein the network configuration task comprises a task to change the network configuration of a management network for the host node (Lo, Paragraph 0037, a cloud-based network controller translates each task into a workflow including one or more actions, and may cause the actions to be executed on the appropriate network devices according to the workflow. Paragraph 0038, the cloud-based network controller can translate each task into a workflow, which may be a sequence of actions that need to be executed at the appropriate network devices in a specific order. Paragraph 0059, non-limiting examples of network configuration tasks may include creating or deleting a virtual network, or adding or removing hosts from a virtual network).
Regarding Claim 10, Lo discloses the method of claim 1 above, wherein establishing an OCC with the host node comprises establishing an OCC with each of the plurality of host nodes in parallel (Lo, Paragraph 0058, determining new configurations to be distributed to the network devices that have other network configurations).
Regarding Claim 12, this claimed limitation is the same as the limitation addressed to Claim 2 above. Therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 13, this claimed limitation is the same as the limitation addressed to Claim 3 above. Therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 14, this claimed limitation is the same as the limitation addressed to Claim 4 above. Therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 15, this claimed limitation is the same as the limitation addressed to Claim 5 above. Therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 17, this claimed limitation is the same as the limitation addressed to Claim 7 above. Therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 20, this claimed limitation is the same as the limitation addressed to Claim 10 above. Therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 6 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lo in view of Veeral Shah et al (US 20250004810 A1), hereinafter “Shah”.
Regarding Claim 6, Lo discloses the method of claim 1 above.
However, Lo fails to explicitly disclose wherein the host nodes comprise heterogeneous host nodes including one or more compute nodes, one or more storage nodes, and one or more hyperconverged nodes.
Shah, from the same or similar field of endeavor, discloses wherein the host nodes comprise heterogeneous host nodes including one or more compute nodes, one or more storage nodes, and one or more hyperconverged nodes (Shah, Paragraph 0037, implementation of a storage pool formed using a common address space across storage located on multiple computing nodes underlies a variety of different configurations of heterogeneous nodes (e.g., storage-only nodes, compute-only nodes, service-only nodes, etc.). Paragraph 0087, a heterogeneous node cloud computing cluster is formed by configuring a CVM-only node that operates in conjunction with ordinary HCI nodes. Paragraph 0121, facilitating operational and/or performance characteristics pertaining to dynamically configuring hypervisor-less nodes in a hyperconverged infrastructure computing clusters).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Lo in view of Shah in order to further modify the method of workflow-based configuration of devices from a cloud controller from the teachings of Lo with the method of infrastructure-dependent scaling of hyperconverged computing nodes from the teachings of Shah.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because by deploying a hybrid node cluster (e.g., heterogeneous node cluster) would not incur in heavy costs to the customer’s workloads (Shah – Paragraph 0085).
Regarding Claim 16, this claimed limitation is the same as the limitation addressed to Claim 6 above. Therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 8, 9, 18, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lo in view of Patricio Humberto Saavedra et al (US 20160315808 A1), hereinafter “Saavedra”.
Regarding Claim 8, Lo discloses the method of claim 7 above.
However, Lo fails to explicitly disclose wherein at least some portion of the management network comprises an L2 management network.
Saavedra, from the same or similar field of endeavor, discloses wherein at least some portion of the management network comprises an L2 management network (Saavedra, Paragraph 0135, using multi-protocol label switch (MPLS) in order to improve network performance across layer2 and layer 3 networks).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Lo in view of Saavedra in order to further modify the method of workflow-based configuration of devices from a cloud controller from the teachings of Lo with the method of providing a control plane for quality of service from the teachings of Saavedra.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because by using different management networks various network performance variables will be addressed (Saavedra – Paragraphs 0003-0009).
Regarding Claim 9, Lo discloses the method of claim 7 above.
However, Lo fails to explicitly disclose wherein at least some portion of the management network comprises an L3 management network.
Saavedra, from the same or similar field of endeavor, discloses wherein at least some portion of the management network comprises an L3 management network.
(Saavedra, Paragraph 0135, using multi-protocol label switch (MPLS) in order to improve network performance across layer2 and layer 3 networks).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Lo in view of Saavedra in order to further modify the method of workflow-based configuration of devices from a cloud controller from the teachings of Lo with the method of providing a control plane for quality of service from the teachings of Saavedra.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated because by using different management networks various network performance variables will be addressed (Saavedra – Paragraphs 0003-0009).
Regarding Claim 18, this claimed limitation is the same as the limitation addressed to Claim 8 above. Therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding Claim 19, this claimed limitation is the same as the limitation addressed to Claim 9 above. Therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
All the references listed on 892 are related to the subject matter of
Some of the prior art include:
US 20200127969 A1, which discloses a method of cloud-based dynamic host configuration protocol configuration.
US 12009985 B2, which discloses a method of network reachability impact analysis.
US 20190312775 A1, which discloses a method of cloud management connectivity assurance.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAVIER O GUZMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-0588. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8 am to 4 pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Brian J Gillis can be reached at 571-272-7952. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JAVIER O GUZMAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2446
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