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 is response to application filed 02/11/2025.
Status of the claims
Claims 1-8 are currently pending for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/11/2025 is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-3, 5, 6 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Koning et al. (US 20210081287, hereafter Koning).
Regarding claim 1, Koning discloses: A management system for a control program of an industrial controller, the management system comprising:
a first server apparatus including a first processor and a first database in which the control program is registered (Koning [0054] discloses: multiple NAS server assignments among multiple data node devices in the cluster of data node devices; [0091] discloses: the cluster VDM can be active in a node elected to provide the cluster controller function, The cluster VDM can deliver the cluster controller functions; [0084] discloses: The cluster VDM file system contains the cluster configuration databases; [093] discloses: The cluster VDM can also own an IP address ); and
a second server apparatus including a second processor and a second database in which the control program is registered, wherein: during ordinary operation, the first processor of the first server apparatus is in a master state, the second processor of the second server apparatus is in a backup state, and the second server apparatus belongs to a first group that receives data sent from the first server apparatus (Koning [0054] discloses: multiple NAS server assignments among multiple data node devices in the cluster of data node devices; [0094] discloses: the cluster controller can select, for each active data VDM, its current active node (where it currently runs) and its backup node. The backup node can be a node that is operational, is different from the active node, and can be chosen so that the total number of assignments to any given node (active and backup); [093] discloses: The cluster VDM can also own an IP address );
the first processor of the first server apparatus sends a first health signal to an address of the first group with a constant period (Koning [0036; 0076] discloses: a heartbeat protocol may be followed by the nodes 210, 220, 230, and 240. In an example heartbeat protocol, a node, e.g., node 210, can periodically send a notification 271 to the other nodes 220, 230, and 240. The notification 271 proves that node 210 remains operational and connected to the storage cluster 200); and
the second processor of the second server apparatus switches from the backup state to the master state, based on the first health signal sent from the first server apparatus to the address of the first group (Koning [0049] discloses: backup operations manager 508 can prepare node 500 for failover of the NAS servers for which node 500 is designated as a backup node. Backup operations manager 508 can monitor heartbeat signals received at heartbeat signal receiver 504, and in response to a delay of heartbeat notifications from another node in the storage cluster, backup node manager 508 can initiate fence launcher 506 to fence the failed node from accessing logical disk 250. In further response to a delay of heartbeat notifications from another node in the storage cluster, backup operations manager 508 can start any NAS servers assigned to the failed node and for which node 500 is designated as backup node in active node and backup node assignments 510).
Regarding claim 2, Koning discloses: management system according to claim 1, wherein when the second processor of the second server apparatus switches to the master state, the second processor of the second server apparatus breaks away from the first group, and generates a second group that receives data sent from the second server apparatus (Koning [0055-0058] discloses: .Distributor 602 can furthermore redistribute active node and passive node assignments after node failure. In response to a failure of a node, e.g., the failure of node 210 illustrated in FIG. 3, distributor 602 can for example redistribute backup node assignments from the failed node. For example, backup node assignments 221B, 231B, and 241B, can be redistributed to the remaining nodes 220, 230, 240 in the cluster 200).
Regarding claim 3, Koning discloses: The management system according to claim 2, wherein the second processor of the second server apparatus sends a second health signal to an address of the second group with a constant period (Koning [0036; 0076] discloses: heartbeat protocol, a node, e.g., node 210, can periodically send a notification 271 to the other nodes 220, 230, and 240. The notification 271 proves that node 210 remains operational and connected to the storage cluster 200. In the event of a delay of notification 271, any of the other nodes 220, 230, and 240, e.g., node 220, can initiate a failover, for example by performing one or more fencing operations to fence off the node 210, and starting NAS server 211A (for which node 220 served as backup node). FIG. 2 illustrates example heartbeat notifications 271, 272, 273, and 274, comprising notifications from nodes 210, 220, 230, and 240, respectively, to each of the other nodes in the storage cluster 200 ).
Regarding claim 5, Koning discloses: The management system according to claim 1, wherein the second processor of the second server apparatus switches from the backup state to the master state, when the first health signal sent from the first server apparatus to the address of the first group is not received (Koning [0076] discloses: Failure to receive the expected messages for a timeout period, or failure of the underlying connection, can be understood as an indication that the non-communicating node may be down. The non-communicating node can be declared down if an attempt to reconnect fails after the timeout or disconnect. The heartbeat messages can be sent periodically, e.g., every second. An example heartbeat timeout period can comprise, e.g., five seconds, which allows three seconds to allow for lost or retransmitted heartbeat messages, plus two seconds for network fault tolerance interruption time. Note that this assumes a network with rapid recovery from network faults, using a properly configured rapid spanning tree protocol (RSTP) switch configuration).
Regarding claim 6, Koning discloses: The management system according to claim 2, further comprising a single or plurality of client apparatuses including a third processor, wherein: during the ordinary operation, the client apparatus belongs to the first group; and the third processor of the client apparatus breaks away from the first group and belongs to the second group, based on the first health signal sent from the first server apparatus to the address of the first group (Koning [0119; 0122] discloses: hosts cluster controller 247, can monitor heartbeat protocol communications of the other nodes 210, 220, and 230, and in response to a failure of a data node device, re-assigning, by the cluster controller, NAS server active and backup data node devices. For example, with reference to FIG. 4, in response to a failure of node 210, cluster controller 247 can re-assign active nodes for NAS servers 211A, 212A, and 213A, thereby reflecting the transfer of NAS servers 211A, 212A, and 213A to nodes 220, 230 and 240. Cluster controller 247 can also re-assign backup node assignments 211B, 212B, and 213B, as well as backup node assignments 221A, 231A, and 241A. Furthermore, cluster controller 247 can undertake further re-assignments after node 210 is restarted).
Regarding claim 8, Koning discloses: The management system according to claim 1, wherein: the first processor of the first server apparatus creates a first update history when updating the first database, and the second processor of the second server apparatus performs equalization from the first database to the second database, based on the first update history (Koning [0098] discloses: When the cluster controller receives a node down notification, it can update data VDM database entries for the data VDMs affected by that failure. In an embodiment, any data VDM that had the failed node as current active node can be updated to list the backup node as the new current active node, and the failed node as backup node (the two values can be interchanged); and
the second processor of the second server apparatus creates a second update history when updating the second database, and the first processor of the first server apparatus performs equalization from the second database to the first database, based on the second update history (Koning [0098] discloses: When the cluster controller receives a node down notification, it can update data VDM database entries for the data VDMs affected by that failure. In an embodiment, any data VDM that had the failed node as current active node can be updated to list the backup node as the new current active node, and the failed node as backup node (the two values can be interchanged).
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.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koning in view of Kamp et al. (US 20220114153, hereafter Kamp).
Regarding claim 4, Koning didn’t disclose, but Kamp discloses: The management system according to claim 1, wherein: the first health signal is a signal that is counted up or counted down with a predetermined period (Kamp [0354] discloses: each host maintains a set of health counters 1330. Health counters 1130 are values, in the volatile memory of host 1200, that are periodically updated by components within host 1200. When a counter ceases to be updated for more than a threshold period of time, it is likely that the component that is responsible for incrementing the counter has failed); and
Koning and Huang are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, distributed computing system. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Koning, to include the teaching of Huang, in order for maintaining a set of health counters. The suggestion to combine is to monitor the health of the various components of a distributed database system.
In addition, Koning discloses: the second processor of the second server apparatus switches from the backup state to the master state, when a value of the first health signal sent from the first server apparatus to the address of the first group does not change for a predetermined period of time (Koning [0089] discloses: network based heartbeats for data service failover, The heartbeat data can comprise, e.g., a node identifier and a current time. A heartbeat message can be expected from each peer node on its connection at least every timeout interval, e.g., every five seconds, which is three times the send interval plus two seconds allowance for network fault tolerance response time. Failure of the connection or timeout of heartbeat receipt can imply node failure. At this point, the connection can be closed and an attempt to reconnect can be made. If that reconnect is unsuccessful after an additional reconnect time interval, e.g., three seconds, the peer node state can transition to “unreachable”. If so, reconnect attempts can continue, with a constant interval between retries. This means that a “node unreachable” event can occur, e.g., eight seconds after the failure of a node or the partitioning of the network between nodes).
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Koning in view of Huang et al. (US 20220121510, hereafter Huang).
Regarding claim 7, Koning didn’t disclose, but Huang discloses: The management system according to claim 6, wherein the third processor of the client apparatus accesses the first database of the first server apparatus when the third processor of the client apparatus belongs to the first group, and accesses the second database of the second server apparatus when the third processor of the client apparatus belongs to the second group (Huang [0022] discloses: whether host computers should switch from accessing cluster 130A to accessing backup cluster 130B. This changeover decision 144 may also be referred to as a failover decision. In the event of a changeover decision, a normally accessed active cluster that is currently serving live traffic will no longer be accessed and, instead, all live traffic will be switched to the backup (or standby) cluster. The active cluster may be referred to as a primary cluster, while the backup cluster may be referred to as a local data recovery cluster).
Koning and Huang are analogous art because they are in the same field of endeavor, distributed computing system. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Koning, to include the teaching of Huang, in order for maintaining multiple database clusters. The suggestion to combine is for preventing inconsistencies between the clusters may in turn improve the overall performance of the database system.
Contact Information
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/CINDY NGUYEN/Examiner, Art Unit 2156