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 .
Response to Amendment
The Amendment, filed on 12/17/2025, has been entered and acknowledged by the Examiner. Claims 1-20 are pending.
Rejection of claim 1-20 under 35 USC 101 has been withdrawn in light of the amendment.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1-20 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Singhal (WO2023/244601) in view of Kushwah (CN110073344A), and further in view of Kant (CN 116368458).
Regarding claim 1, Singhal discloses a target storage system comprising: a plurality of storage devices (Fig. 7); and a storage system controller (Fig. 7), operatively coupled to the plurality of storage devices, comprising a processing device configured to:
store, one or more of the plurality of storage device of a target storage system, a snapshot of metadata of a file system on a source storage system in one or more of the plurality of storage devices of the target storage system (¶[0160], the target file system applied all deltas (or blobs).. continues to download snapshot metadata from the Object Store and populates the target file system’s snapshots with the information of the source file system’s snapshots);
receive a request to access data stored in the file system located on the source storage system (¶ [0166]), at least a request to read/write);
identify a portion of the metadata comprising identification information of the data (¶ [0152], Snapshot metadata may include snapshot type, snapshot identification information, snapshot time, etc.); and
retrieve, by the target storage system, the data stored in the file system located on the source storage system by providing the source storage system with the identification information of the data (¶ [0167], retrieving data).
While Singhal discloses information pertaining to identification of snapshot and data, Kushwah further discloses identification information of the data (At least Fig. 3, “301”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Kushwah into Singhal to detect snapshot and data changes).
Kushwah and Singhal do not explicitly disclose, as amended, identify a portion of the metadata “stored in the file system located on the storage system,” but Kant discloses identify a portion of the metadata.. stored in the file system located on the storage system (Kant, metadata to track or optimize the transfer of content from a copy source to an asynchronous or snapshot-based copy target, it may be necessary to maintain consistent to allow a member storage system of the copy source to be seamlessly switched to another member storage system from the store).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Kant into Kushwah and Singhal to keep modification of data be consistent with associated metadata.
Regarding claim 2, Singhal in view of Kushwah and Kant disclose the storage system of claim 1, wherein the processing device is further configured to: receive, from the source storage system, a subsequent snapshot comprising changes to the metadata of the snapshot (¶ [0167], changes to snapshots are received); and transfer the changes to the metadata from the subsequent snapshot as an atomic update to the metadata (¶ 0174], atomically updated).
Regarding claim 3, Singhal in view of Kushwah and Kant disclose the storage system of claim 1, wherein the metadata of the file system is stored in the one or more of the plurality of storage devices while avoiding storing underlying data of the file system in the storage system (¶ [0179], setting a state to avoid issues).
Regarding claim 4, Singhal in view of Kushwah and Kant disclose the storage system of claim 1, wherein the processing device is further configured to: service metadata-only operations using the metadata of the file system stored in the one or more of the plurality of storage devices while avoiding accessing the source storage system (¶ [0072]).
Regarding claim 5, Singhal in view of Kushwah and Kant disclose the storage system of claim 1, wherein the processing device is further configured to: receive one or more readahead policies for particular pieces of data stored in the file system (¶¶ [0088], [0213]);
identify corresponding portions of the metadata comprising corresponding identification information for the particular pieces of data (Singhal, ¶ [0152]; Kushwah, Fig. 3);
retrieve the particular pieces of data stored in the file system by providing the source storage system with the corresponding identification information (¶ [0150]; Fig. 10); and
store the particular pieces of data in a set of storage devices of the plurality of storage devices (¶ [0150]; Fig. 10).
Regarding claim 6, Singhal in view of Kushwah and Kant disclose the storage system of claim 1, wherein the processing device is further configured to: identify corresponding portions of the metadata comprising corresponding identification information for one or more pieces of data stored in the file system based on corresponding characteristics for the one or more pieces of data (Kushwah, Fig. 3; Singhal, ¶ [0157]));
retrieve the one or more pieces of data stored in the file system by providing the source storage system with the corresponding identification information (¶ [0167], retrieving data); and
store the one or more pieces of data in a set of storage devices of the plurality of storage devices (¶ [0167]).
Regarding claim 7, Singhal in view of Kushwah and Kant disclose the storage system of claim 1, wherein the processing device is further to: transmit the snapshot of the metadata to another storage system, wherein the snapshot of the metadata enables the other storage system to access the data stored in the file system using the metadata (¶¶ [0156]-[0160]).
Regarding claims 8-14, see discussion of claims 1-7 above for the same reason of rejection.
Regarding claims 15-20, see discussion of claims 1-6 above for the same reason of rejection.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/TUANKHANH D PHAN/ Examiner, Art Unit 2154