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 Non-Final Office Action is in response to the application 18/964,230 filed on 05/12/2026.
This is in response to Applicants’ Arguments (pages 9-20) dated 05/12/2026 responding to the 03/12/2026 Final Office Action.
Status of Claims:
Claims 1-20 are pending in this Office Action.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 05/12/2026 (pages 9-20) have been fully considered. However, after further examination, new grounds of rejection are presented necessitated by applicant’s arguments. This Action is made NON-FINAL.
CLAIM REJECTIONS UNDER 35 U.S.C. § 112(a)
After reviewing the Applicant’s arguments filed in the remarks filed 05/12/2026
(pg. 9-11) regarding rejected claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a), the Examiner respectfully submits that the rejections made in the previous office action under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) are now withdrawn.
CLAIM REJECTIONS UNDER 35 U.S.C. § 101
After reviewing the Applicant’s arguments filed in the remarks filed 05/12/2026
(pg. 17-19) regarding rejected claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the Examiner respectfully submits that the rejections made in the previous office action under 35 U.S.C. § 101are now withdrawn.
CLAIM REJECTIONS UNDER 35 U.S.C. § 102/103
Applicant’s arguments filed on 05/12/2026 (pg. 11-17) have been fully
considered. However, after further examination and consideration, new grounds of rejection UNDER 35 U.S.C. § 103 are presented.
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 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 1-11 and 13-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bourbonnais et al. (US PGPUB 20150112931) “Bourbonnais ” in view of Alvarez Callau et al. (US PGPUB 20180302340) “Alvarez Callau”.
Regarding claim 1, Bourbonnais teaches a system, comprising: a service provider network comprising a first region and one or more additional regions (Fig. 6A & [0092]: “ FIG. 6A is a schematic diagram that illustrates a simplified multisite, multiworkload, integrated continuous/reliable availability system 110, including multiple geographically distributed computing sites, for example, Site A 112, Site B 114 and Site C 116. Site A 112 may be located in one region, for example Region 1 (not shown), and Site 114 and Site C 116 may be located in another region, for example, Region 2 (not shown), that is relatively geographically distant from Region 1.”), wherein the first region and the one or more additional regions each respectively comprise: a first set of computing devices configured to implement query processor instances for a multi-region distributed database ([0081]: “Individual units of work may be received or may be initiated at one of the site one 74 or site two 76. For example, in some embodiments site one 74 may include a computer system that is simultaneously or intermittently executing one or more priority workloads 80 and one or more general workloads 90”…Examiner’s note: Thus, there is a processor such as a computer system that can process workloads at each site and it is equivalent to first set of computing devices); a second set of computing devices configured to implement at least a portion of a commit layer for the multi-region distributed database ([0118]: “The unit of work includes a series of updates and/or inserts in a relational database and the unit of work is defined by a first transaction, and terminated by a commit request, which closes the group of transactions and stores them in a database”… Examiner’s note: Thus, each site has a processor that commits data to a database and this is equivalent to a second set of computing devices ); and a third set of computing devices configured to implement a storage layer for the multi-region distributed database ([0085]: “Site one 74 may include a software replication module 88, a hardware replication module 98, and a storage unit 94. Likewise, site two 76 may include a software replication module 100, a hardware replication module 102, and a storage unit 104. An additional storage unit 96 may be located at a third site, for example, site three 106”… Examiner’s note: Each site has a corresponding storage unit and this is equivalent to storage layer).
Bourbonnais does not explicitly teach one or more computing devices configured to implement a multi-region control plane for the multi-region distributed database, wherein the multi-region control plane is configured to: monitor for read load scaling events in each of the storage layers of the region and the one or more additional regions; in response to detecting a read load scaling event being performed with regard to the storage layer of a given one of the regions, automatically cause the storage layers of the remaining ones of the regions to perform a scaling action proportional to the read load scaling event of the given region, wherein a magnitude of the automatically performed scaling action is determined based on an amount of spare read capacity needed in the remaining ones of the regions to absorb a load of any one of the regions in response to a region-wide failure event.
Alvarez Callau teaches monitor for read load scaling events in each of the storage layers of the region and the one or more additional regions (Abstract: “A resource allocation system is provided and includes a processor, a memory, and an application including instructions configured to: receive forecast data from a forecast server computer indicating a predicted metric value corresponding to a cloud-based service for a first geographical region; determine an expected usage amount for the first geographical region based on the predicted metric value”… [0059]: … “The predictive and normalization analysis include determining resource allocation values for predetermined periods of time and respectively for each data center and geographical region. In one embodiment, a number of VMs is determined using equation 1 for each period of time, data center and/or geographical region”… Examiner’s note: The system determines resource allocation in a data center of a region such as number of VMs expected for a service, thus can correspond to read load scaling events in each of the storage layers of the region and the one or more additional regions); in response to detecting a read load scaling event being performed with regard to the storage layer of a given one of the regions, automatically cause the storage layers of the remaining ones of the regions to perform a scaling action proportional to the read load scaling event of the given region, wherein a magnitude of the automatically performed scaling action is determined based on an amount of spare read capacity needed in the remaining ones of the regions to absorb a load of any one of the regions in response to a region-wide failure event (Abstract: “A resource allocation system…determine a failover resource amount to cover a portion of a load in a second geographical region due to a failure; determine a predicted resource allocation value based on the expected usage and failover resource amounts; determine a reactive resource allocation value based on the predicted metric value or a parameter”… [0024]: “The proactive and reactive resource allocation systems account for failover between nearby data centers… Failover refers to when a first data center in a geographical region is experiencing issues, such that the first data center is unable to handle a certain amount of load, and a second data center allocates resources to handle the load. An example of an issue is when one or more resources of the first data center is operating inappropriately and/or are down due to, for example, a power failure…One or more data centers may allocate resources to handle the load no longer being handled by the first data center”… [0068]: “the mapping and scaling processor 98 executes the mapping and scaling code 58 to scale in (or down), maintain, or scale out (or up) an amount of allocated resources. As an example, this may include changing resource allocations including a number of VMs, PMs, application instances, network access time, amount of storage, processor speed, etc. The mapping relates the amounts of allocated resources to the data centers and geographical regions. The scaling may be performed based on the predictive resource schedule generated, modified and/or regenerated during operation”… Examiner’s note: The system determines the amount of resources to scale to other regions based on the resources of a particular region to handle the amount of load when the particular region is down). It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the Alvarez Callau teachings in the Bourbonnais system. Skilled artisan would have been motivated to incorporate allocating resources of data center across different regions to cover load due to a failure taught by Alvarez Callau in the Bourbonnais system to ensure that a load can be handled by any data center in the event of failure, thus improves the system in query handling and auto-scaling. This close relation between both of the references highly suggests an expectation of success.
Regarding claim 2, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 1. Bourbonnais further teaches wherein the first region and the one or more additional regions each respectively comprise: a plurality of availability zones (Fig. 4 & [0074]: “Site one 54, site two 56 and site three 69 may be geographically distributed computing sites. For example, site one 54 may be located in one region, for example Region A 67, and site two 56 and site three 69 may be located in another region, for example, Region B 68, that is relatively geographically distant from Region A 67”…Examiner’s note: Thus, a region can have plurality of sites which can be equivalent to plurality of availability zones ); and respective groups of computing devices in each of the respective availability zones that implement the storage layer, wherein the third set of computing devices includes the groups of computing devices in each of the plurality of availability zones (Fig. 5 & [0085]: “In addition, site one 74 may include a software replication module 88, a hardware replication module 98, and a storage unit 94. Likewise, site two 76 may include a software replication module 100, a hardware replication module 102, and a storage unit 104. An additional storage unit 96 may be located at a third site, for example, site three 106.”).
Regarding claim 3, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 2. Bourbonnais further teaches wherein the third set of computing devices implement storage nodes for the storage layer using virtualized computing instances that are configured to: store a shard of data assigned to a given storage node ([0087]: “In an embodiment, the hardware replication modules 98, 102 may replicate contents of the storage units 94, 104 simultaneously with or immediately after each write function to the storage units 94, 104”…Examiner’s note: The system processes writes that are stored in a corresponding storage unit of a site. Thus, a unit or shard of data can be processed and stored at a particular storage node); and read data from the shard assigned to the given storage node in response to read requests from the query processor instances ([0087]: “The hardware replication modules 98, 102 may be configured to periodically replicate the contents of the storage units 94, 104 of the respective sites 74, 76, including priority workload data and general workload data. The hardware replication modules 98, 102 collect content from the storage units 94, 104 and coordinate the periodic replication of those contents on site three 106 at relatively less frequent intervals or periods, such as, for example, once every 5 seconds, once every 10 seconds, once every 30 seconds or once per minute”… Examiner’s note: The system collect content from the storage units such as for periodic replication so the collect of content from the storage units is equivalent to read data from the shard assigned to the given storage node ).
Regarding claim 4, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 3. Bourbonnais further teaches wherein the multi-region control plane causes the respective local control planes of the remaining ones of the regions to add more replicas or re-shared data stored in the storage layer such that the remaining ones of the regions have capacity to absorb the load of any one of the regions in response to a region-wide failure event (Fig. 6A & [0094]: “The primary computing site in this example, Site A 112, may host an active priority workload 118 and an active general workload 120…For example, a standby priority workload 122 may be executed in parallel on Site B 114. That is, the program instructions, associated data and state information of active priority workload 118 may be replicated from Site A 112 to Site B, for example, by the software replication module 58 of FIG. 4, and the priority workload program instructions may be simultaneously executed at Site A 112 and at Site B 114 as an active priority workload 118 and as a standby priority workload 122”…[0095]: “In addition, the active general workload 120 may be provided with reliable availability and workload redirection provisions, including managed hardware replication techniques, because it is a general workload. For example, the contents, or image, of a storage unit 126 at Site A (Image A), including the program instructions, may be periodically replicated to maintain a copy of the contents on a storage unit 132 at Site C (Copy A)”… [0097]: “The workload availability module 124 may be configured to detect that Site A 112 is unavailable, or that the active priority workload 118 is not executing on the primary site. In this case, as shown in FIG. 6B, workload availability module 124 may reassign and automatically redirect active priority workload 118 (i.e., transmit the ongoing/future data stream of active priority workload 118) to Site B 114, and designate the execution of the priority workload on Site B as the active priority workload 118”… Examiner’s note: The other sites such as sites B and C are replicated with data from site A so data can be added or removed to match with site A, and to the other sites to handle operations when site A is unavailable).
Bourbonnais does not explicitly teach a local control plane configured to increase or decrease a number of replicas of a given shard that are maintained in the storage layer and/or re-shard data stored in the storage layer to increase a number of storage nodes that are storing shards of the data, wherein the read load scaling event performed with regard to the storage layer of the given region comprises a local control plane of the given region adding more replicas or re-sharding data stored in the storage layer to increase a number of storage nodes used to store data in the storage layer of the given region.
Alvarez Callau teaches a local control plane configured to increase or decrease a number of replicas of a given shard that are maintained in the storage layer and/or re-shard data stored in the storage layer to increase a number of storage nodes that are storing shards of the data, wherein the read load scaling event performed with regard to the storage layer of the given region comprises a local control plane of the given region adding more replicas or re-sharding data stored in the storage layer to increase a number of storage nodes used to store data in the storage layer of the given region (Abstract:… “receive forecast data from a forecast server computer indicating a predicted metric value corresponding to a cloud-based service for a first geographical region; determine an expected usage amount for the first geographical region based on the predicted metric value; determine a failover resource amount to cover a portion of a load in a second geographical region due to a failure; determine a predicted resource allocation value based on the expected usage and failover resource amounts; determine a reactive resource allocation value based on the predicted metric value or a parameter, where the parameter corresponds to access of cloud-based resources for the cloud-based service”… [0033]: “Each of the functors provides resource allocation amounts of each data center and/or geographical region. As an example, each of the functors may provide an estimated (predictive and/or reactive) number of VMs to allocate to each data center and/or geographical region over time”…[0068]: “At 240, the mapping and scaling processor 98 executes the mapping and scaling code 58 to scale in (or down), maintain, or scale out (or up) an amount of allocated resources. As an example, this may include changing resource allocations including a number of VMs, PMs, application instances, network access time, amount of storage, processor speed, etc”). Please refer to claim 1 for the motivational statement.
Regarding claim 5, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 4. Bourbonnais further teaches wherein to automatically cause the storage layers of the remaining ones of the regions to perform a scaling action proportional to the read load scaling event of the given region, the multi-region control plane is configured to: provide load statistics for each of the regions to each of the other ones of the regions ([0094]: “The primary computing site in this example, Site A, may host an active priority workload and an active general workload. That is to say, the active priority workload and an active general workload may be assigned to Site A…For example, a standby priority workload may be executed in parallel on Site B. That is, the program instructions, associated data and state information of active priority workload may be replicated from Site A to Site B, for example, by the software replication module 58 of FIG. 4, and the priority workload program instructions may be simultaneously executed at Site A 112 and at Site B 114 as an active priority workload 118 and as a standby priority workload 122”…[0095]: “In addition, the active general workload 120 may be provided with reliable availability and workload redirection provisions, including managed hardware replication techniques, because it is a general workload. For example, the contents, or image, of a storage unit 126 at Site A (Image A), including the program instructions, may be periodically replicated to maintain a copy of the contents on a storage unit 132 at Site C (Copy A)…Examiner’s note: The system determines such as active priority workload or contents/image of a storage unit to replicate to corresponding sites such as site B or C. Thus, each region that is replicated with data from other regions is also provided with data descriptions such as active priority workload, standby priority workload, or contents/image of a storage unit and these can be equivalent to load statistics.”).
Regarding claim 6, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 4. Bourbonnais further teaches the multi-region control plane is configured to: provide a sharding scheme used for one or more other regions to each of the other ones of the regions ([0094]: “Associated data and state information of active priority workload may be replicated from Site A to Site B, for example, by the software replication module 58 of FIG. 4, and the priority workload program instructions may be simultaneously executed at Site A 112 and at Site B 114 as an active priority workload 118 and as a standby priority workload 122”…[0095]: “contents, or image, of a storage unit 126 at Site A (Image A), including the program instructions, may be periodically replicated to maintain a copy of the contents on a storage unit 132 at Site C (Copy A)”… Examiner’s note: Different shards such as active priority workload, or contents/image of a storage unit can be mapped to sharding scheme and each different scheme is replicated to corresponding region).
Bourbonnais does not explicitly teach provide storage layer configuration information indicating a number of replicas used.
Alvarez Callau teaches provide storage layer configuration information indicating a number of replicas used ([0033]: “Each of the functors provides resource allocation amounts of each data center and/or geographical region. As an example, each of the functors may provide an estimated (predictive and/or reactive) number of VMs to allocate to each data center and/or geographical region over time”). Please refer to claim 1 for the motivational statement.
Regarding claim 7, note the rejections of claim 1. The instant claims recite substantially same limitations as the above-rejected claims and are therefore rejected under the same prior-art teachings.
Regarding claim 8, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 7. Bourbonnais does not explicitly teach the read load scaling event changes a number of replicas or a number of shards implemented in a storage layer of the given region, and wherein the scaling action causes a number of replicas or a number of shards implemented in respective storage layers of the remaining regions to be changed based on the change in the number replicas or shards in the given region.
Alvarez Callau teaches read load scaling event changes a number of replicas or a number of shards implemented in a storage layer of the given region, and wherein the scaling action causes a number of replicas or a number of shards implemented in respective storage layers of the remaining regions to be changed based on the change in the number replicas or shards in the given region (Abstract: “receive forecast data from a forecast server computer indicating a predicted metric value corresponding to a cloud-based service for a first geographical region; determine an expected usage amount for the first geographical region based on the predicted metric value; determine a failover resource amount to cover a portion of a load in a second geographical region due to a failure”…[0033]: “Each of the functors provides resource allocation amounts of each data center and/or geographical region. As an example, each of the functors may provide an estimated (predictive and/or reactive) number of VMs to allocate to each data center and/or geographical region over time”…[0034]: “The service load predictor code 46 determines, based on forecasted load values, appropriate amounts of resources to allocate currently based on a previous prediction and predicts an appropriate amount of resources to allocate in the future”). Please refer to claim 1 for the motivational statement.
Regarding claim 9, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 7. Bourbonnais further teaches each of the regions comprise a plurality of availability zones ([0094]: “The primary computing site in this example, Site A 112, may host an active priority workload 118 and an active general workload 120… a standby priority workload 122 may be executed in parallel on Site B 114”… Examiner’s note: Each region or site can have particular zones such as of elements 118,120, and 122 of fig 6B).
Bourbonnais does not explicitly teach the read load scaling event changes a number of replicas or a number of shards implemented in a storage layer in each of the availability zones of the given region and the scaling action causes a number of replicas or a number of shards implemented in respective storage layers of each of the availability zones of the remaining regions to be changed.
Alvarez Callau teaches the read load scaling event changes a number of replicas or a number of shards implemented in a storage layer in each of the availability zones of the given region; and the scaling action causes a number of replicas or a number of shards implemented in respective storage layers of each of the availability zones of the remaining regions to be changed (Abstract: “receive forecast data from a forecast server computer indicating a predicted metric value corresponding to a cloud-based service for a first geographical region; determine an expected usage amount for the first geographical region based on the predicted metric value; determine a failover resource amount to cover a portion of a load in a second geographical region due to a failure”…[0033]: “Each of the functors provides resource allocation amounts of each data center and/or geographical region. As an example, each of the functors may provide an estimated (predictive and/or reactive) number of VMs to allocate to each data center and/or geographical region over time”…[0034]: “The service load predictor code 46 determines, based on forecasted load values, appropriate amounts of resources to allocate currently based on a previous prediction and predicts an appropriate amount of resources to allocate in the future”). Please refer to claim 1 for the motivational statement.
Regarding claim 10, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 7. Bourbonnais further teaches wherein the multi-region database comprises a first region and a second region, and wherein: the first region comprises a number of replicas and a number of shards to service a load of the first region and a load that would be transferred to the first region in response to a region-wide failure of the second region; and the second region comprises a number of replicas and a number of shards to service a load of the second region and a load that would be transferred to the second region in response to a region-wide failure of the first region ([0089]: “Multiple workloads may execute on separate sites, and each may be replicated to one or more other sites. For example, a priority workload 80 may execute on site one 74 and be replicated to site two 76, while another priority workload 84 executes on site two 76 and is simultaneously replicated on site one 74”…[0096]: “Thus, at any given moment in time, the contents of the storage unit 126 at Site A 112 may be backed up by a mirrored copy at a backup site, such as the storage unit 132 at Site C 116, which may be available in the case that Site A 112 should become unavailable”…[0097]: “The workload availability module 124 may be configured to detect that Site A 112 is unavailable, or that the active priority workload 118 is not executing on the primary site. In this case, as shown in FIG. 6B, workload availability module 124 may reassign and automatically redirect active priority workload 118 (i.e., transmit the ongoing/future data stream of active priority workload 118) to Site B 114, and designate the execution of the priority workload on Site B as the active priority workload 118”… Examiner’s note: Thus, each site can handle its own service and also carries a backup of another sites to assist service of other sites when they become unavailable).
Regarding claim 11, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 7. Bourbonnais further teaches wherein the multi-region database comprises a first region and a second region, and one or more additional regions ([0074]: “Site one 54, site two 56 and site three 69 may be geographically distributed computing sites. For example, site one 54 may be located in one region, for example Region A 67, and site two 56 and site three 69 may be located in another region, for example, Region B 68, that is relatively geographically distant from Region A 67…In an alternative embodiment, site three 69 may be located in a third region that is relatively geographically distant from Region A 67 and from Region B 68”.), wherein each of the regions comprises a number of replicas and a number of shards to service a load of the respective region and to service a fraction of a largest load of the remaining regions ([0089]: “Multiple workloads may execute on separate sites, and each may be replicated to one or more other sites. For example, a priority workload 80 may execute on site one 74 and be replicated to site two 76, while another priority workload 84 executes on site two 76 and is simultaneously replicated on site one 74”…[0096]: “Thus, at any given moment in time, the contents of the storage unit 126 at Site A 112 may be backed up by a mirrored copy at a backup site, such as the storage unit 132 at Site C 116, which may be available in the case that Site A 112 should become unavailable”), and wherein the fractions of capacity at each of the regions, other than the region with the largest load, collectively provide capacity for the largest load to be distributed among the remaining regions in response to a region-wide failure of the region with the largest load (Fig. 6A & [0094]: “Associated data and state information of active priority workload 118 may be replicated from Site A 112 to Site B, for example, by the software replication module 58 of FIG. 4, and the priority workload program instructions may be simultaneously executed at Site A 112 and at Site B 114 as an active priority workload 118 and as a standby priority workload 122”…[0095]: “The contents, or image, of a storage unit 126 at Site A, including the program instructions, may be periodically replicated to maintain a copy of the contents on a storage unit 132 at Site C (Copy A)”… Examiner’s note: Fractions of capacity at each of the regions such as where site B and C are stored, a fraction of capacity at site B is stored with priority workload of site A, and a fraction of capacity at site C is stored with contents, or image, of a storage unit at Site A).
Regarding claim 13, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 7. Bourbonnais further teaches wherein automatically causing the storage layers of the remaining ones of the regions to perform a scaling action proportional to the scaling event of the given region comprises: providing load statistics for each of the regions to each of the other ones of the regions ([0094]: “The primary computing site in this example, Site A, may host an active priority workload and an active general workload. That is to say, the active priority workload and an active general workload may be assigned to Site A…For example, a standby priority workload may be executed in parallel on Site B. That is, the program instructions, associated data and state information of active priority workload may be replicated from Site A to Site B, for example, by the software replication module 58 of FIG. 4, and the priority workload program instructions may be simultaneously executed at Site A 112 and at Site B 114 as an active priority workload 118 and as a standby priority workload 122”…[0095]: “In addition, the active general workload 120 may be provided with reliable availability and workload redirection provisions, including managed hardware replication techniques, because it is a general workload. For example, the contents, or image, of a storage unit 126 at Site A (Image A), including the program instructions, may be periodically replicated to maintain a copy of the contents on a storage unit 132 at Site C (Copy A)”…Examiner’s note: The system determines such as active priority workload or contents/image of a storage unit to replicate to corresponding sites such as site B or C. Thus, each region that is replicated with data from other regions is also provided with data descriptions such as active priority workload, standby priority workload, or contents/image of a storage unit and these can be equivalent to load statistics.).
Regarding claim 14, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 7. Bourbonnais further teaches wherein automatically causing the storage layers of the remaining ones of the regions to perform a scaling action proportional to the scaling event of the given region, comprises: providing sharding scheme used for a highest capacity region to each of the other ones of the regions ([0094]: “Associated data and state information of active priority workload may be replicated from Site A to Site B, for example, by the software replication module 58 of FIG. 4, and the priority workload program instructions may be simultaneously executed at Site A 112 and at Site B 114 as an active priority workload 118 and as a standby priority workload 122”…[0095]: “contents, or image, of a storage unit 126 at Site A (Image A), including the program instructions, may be periodically replicated to maintain a copy of the contents on a storage unit 132 at Site C (Copy A)”… Examiner’s note: Different shards such as active priority workload, or contents/image of a storage unit can be mapped to sharding scheme and each different scheme is replicated to corresponding region).
Bourbonnais does not explicitly teach providing storage layer configuration information indicating a number of replicas used.
Alvarez Callau teaches providing storage layer configuration information indicating a number of replicas used ([0033]: “Each of the functors provides resource allocation amounts of each data center and/or geographical region. As an example, each of the functors may provide an estimated (predictive and/or reactive) number of VMs to allocate to each data center and/or geographical region over time.”). Please refer to claim 1 for the motivational statement.
Regarding claim 15, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 7. Bourbonnais further teaches performing, by a local control plane of a given region of the multi-region distributed database, a read load scaling event based on a regional scaling algorithm ([0087]: “In an embodiment, the hardware replication modules 98, 102 may replicate contents of the storage units 94, 104 simultaneously with or immediately after each write function to the storage units 94, 104”… Examiner’s note: Each site can perform a load scaling event such as write function to its own storage unit); and performing, by respective local control planes of other ones of the regions of the multi-region distributed database, respective local read load scaling events based on local regional scaling algorithms, wherein said performing the respective local read load scaling events are performed in response to a multi-region control plane of the multi-region distributed database providing load information for other ones of the regions to the respective local control planes (Fig. 6A & [0094]: “Associated data and state information of active priority workload 118 may be replicated from Site A 112 to Site B, for example, by the software replication module 58 of FIG. 4, and the priority workload program instructions may be simultaneously executed at Site A 112 and at Site B 114 as an active priority workload 118 and as a standby priority workload 122”…[0095]: “The contents, or image, of a storage unit 126 at Site A, including the program instructions, may be periodically replicated to maintain a copy of the contents on a storage unit 132 at Site C (Copy A)”).
Regarding claim 16, note the rejections of claim 1. The instant claims recite substantially same limitations as the above-rejected claims and are therefore rejected under the same prior-art teachings.
Regarding claim 17, note the rejections of claim 1. The instant claims recite substantially same limitations as the above-rejected claims and are therefore rejected under the same prior-art teachings.
Regarding claim 18, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 16. Bourbonnais further teaches implement local control planes in each of the regions of the multi-region distributed database ([0089]: “Multiple workloads may execute on separate sites, and each may be replicated to one or more other sites. For example, a priority workload 80 may execute on site one 74 and be replicated to site two 76, while another priority workload 84 executes on site two 76 and is simultaneously replicated on site one 74”… Examiner’s note: Each site can process its own workloads thus is equivalent to having a local control planes in each of the regions ), wherein: the local control planes are configured to perform local scaling actions based on local load conditions and based on load information received from a multi-region control plane implemented via the program instructions ([0080]: “FIG. 5 illustrates a schematic diagram of the various components in accordance with another embodiment of the invention. An integrated continuous/reliable availability system 70 includes a workload distribution module 72. In an embodiment, the workload distribution module 72 may collect metrics from multiple computing sites, for example, site two 76 and either site one 74 or site three 106. The metrics collected for each of the workloads may include, for example, processor speed, pending transactions, transaction execution time, system availability, network bandwidth utilization and availability, and any other performance-based metrics known in the art. The workload distribution module 72 may use the metrics in order to distribute one or more units of work 78 for one or more workloads to site one 74 and site two 76”… Examiner’s note: Thus, there is a workload distribution module that is equivalent to multi-region control plane where loads are distributed from and to the corresponding sites for processing).
Regarding claim 19, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 18. Bourbonnais further teaches load statistics for one or more other regions of the multi-region distributed database ([0094]: “The primary computing site in this example, Site A, may host an active priority workload and an active general workload. That is to say, the active priority workload and an active general workload may be assigned to Site A…For example, a standby priority workload may be executed in parallel on Site B. That is, the program instructions, associated data and state information of active priority workload may be replicated from Site A to Site B, for example, by the software replication module 58 of FIG. 4, and the priority workload program instructions may be simultaneously executed at Site A 112 and at Site B 114 as an active priority workload 118 and as a standby priority workload 122”…[0095]: “In addition, the active general workload 120 may be provided with reliable availability and workload redirection provisions, including managed hardware replication techniques, because it is a general workload. For example, the contents, or image, of a storage unit 126 at Site A (Image A), including the program instructions, may be periodically replicated to maintain a copy of the contents on a storage unit 132 at Site C (Copy A)”…Examiner’s note: The system determines such as active priority workload or contents/image of a storage unit to replicate to corresponding sites such as site B or C. Thus, each region that is replicated with data from other regions is also provided with data descriptions such as active priority workload, standby priority workload, or contents/image of a storage unit and these can be equivalent to load statistics.).
Regarding claim 20, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 18. Bourbonnais further teaches wherein the load information provided by the multi-region control plane comprises: storage layer configuration information indicating sharding scheme used for one or more other regions of the multi-region distributed database. ([0094]: “Associated data and state information of active priority workload may be replicated from Site A to Site B, for example, by the software replication module 58 of FIG. 4, and the priority workload program instructions may be simultaneously executed at Site A 112 and at Site B 114 as an active priority workload 118 and as a standby priority workload 122”…[0095]: “contents, or image, of a storage unit 126 at Site A (Image A), including the program instructions, may be periodically replicated to maintain a copy of the contents on a storage unit 132 at Site C (Copy A)”… Examiner’s note: Different shards such as active priority workload, or contents/image of a storage unit can be mapped to sharding scheme and each different scheme is replicated to corresponding region).
Bourbonnais does not explicitly teach storage layer configuration information indicating a number of replicas used.
Alvarez Callau teaches storage layer configuration information indicating a number of replicas used ([0033]: “Each of the functors provides resource allocation amounts of each data center and/or geographical region. As an example, each of the functors may provide an estimated (predictive and/or reactive) number of VMs to allocate to each data center and/or geographical region over time.”). Please refer to claim 1 for the motivational statement.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bourbonnais et al. (US PGPUB 20150112931) “Bourbonnais ” in view of Alvarez Callau et al. (US PGPUB 20180302340) “Alvarez Callau” and Altaf et al. (US PGPUB 20050154697) “Altaf”.
Regarding claim 12, Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau teaches all of the limitations of claim 7. Bourbonnais further teaches wherein the multi-region control plane is further configured to: monitor query processor instance load in each of the regions of the multi-region database ([0089]: “Multiple workloads may execute on separate sites, and each may be replicated to one or more other sites. For example, a priority workload 80 may execute on site one 74 and be replicated to site two 76, while another priority workload 84 executes on site two 76 and is simultaneously replicated on site one 74”…Examiner’s note: Each site can be monitored for workload executions and further replication is processed).
Bourbonnais in view of Alvarez Callau does not explicitly teach provide an indication that query processing loads are to be increased in a given region in response to an amount of excess query processors capacity falling below a threshold amount, wherein the threshold amount accounts for query processing load that would be shifted to each of the regions in response to a region-wide failure event.
Altaf teaches provide an indication that query processing loads are to be increased in a given region in response to an amount of excess query processors capacity falling below a threshold amount, wherein the threshold amount accounts for query processing load that would be shifted to each of the regions in response to a region-wide failure event ([0032]: “The management module determines the number of database replicas 150B of the database 150A that exist in the cluster. For example, in the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 1, only one database replica 150B of the database 150A exists. The management module 140 determines if it is desirable to adjust the number of database replicas 150B of the database 150A that were determined (at 230) based on the preselected threshold value associated with the monitored condition. Based on the threshold value, the management module 140 may increase the number of existing database replicas 150B, may decrease the number of database replicas 150B, or may leave the number of existing database replicas 150B unchanged, as explained in FIG. 3”...[0034]: “If it is determined (at 310) that the value representative of the monitored operating condition exceeds the preselected threshold value, then that is an indication that at least one additional database replica 150B of the database 150A may be desired to reduce the load on the database 150A”… Examiner’s note: The system uses a threshold value to compare the number of database replicas of a database needed in a server to reduce load on the database). It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the Altaf teachings in the Bourbonnais and Alvarez Callau system. Skilled artisan would have been motivated to incorporate increasing database replicas based on threshold taught by Altaf in the Bourbonnais and Alvarez Callau system to ensure the amount of replica needed to apply to the other regions is sufficient, and can subsequently reduce loads on particular region. This close relation between both of the references highly suggests an expectation of success.
Conclusion
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/C.D.V./Examiner, Art Unit 2153 05/26/2026
/KAVITA STANLEY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2153
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