Final Rejection
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 .
Claim 11 is cancelled by Applicant
Claims 1-10 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2)
Claims 13-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103
Response to Amendment
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 1-10 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and (a)(2) as being anticipated by Xu et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2020/0004648 A1), hereinafter referred to as Xu.
With regards to Claim 1, Xu teaches:
A resource failure mitigation method for a distributed control system (Paragraph 0006 and Fig. 1), the method comprising (Paragraphs 0009 and 0012):
predicting failure of a first resource executing a service (Paragraph 0012), wherein the service is provided by a containerized application (Paragraphs 0017-0018 and 0032-0034; Paragraphs 0006; Fig. 1);
persisting a state of the service, wherein persisting the state of the service comprises checkpointing the state of a container in which the service is running (Paragraphs 0011-0012 and 0032-0035);
and restoring the service at a second resource using the persisted state, wherein restoring the service comprises instantiating a new container for the service at the second resource and restoring the service in the new container using the persisted state (Paragraphs 0012, 0022-0023, and 0034). Please note that instantiation of a new container is interpreted as moving the old container to a new resource, as described in Paragraphs 0012 and 0015 of Applicant’s specification.
With regards to Claim 2, Xu teaches the method of Claim 1 as cited above. Xu further teaches:
wherein predicting failure of the first resource comprises predicting resource failure based on diagnostic data (Paragraphs 0029-0030).
With regards to Claim 3, Xu teaches the method of Claim 2 as cited above. Xu further teaches:
wherein the diagnostic data comprise monitoring data relating to one or more performance metrics of the resource (Paragraphs 0036-0037 and 0029-0030).
With regards to Claim 4, Xu teaches the method of Claim 2 as cited above. Xu further teaches:
wherein the diagnostic data comprise log data generated by one or more diagnostic tools (Paragraphs 0029-0030).
With regards to Claim 5, Xu teaches the method of Claim 2 as cited above. Xu further teaches:
wherein the diagnostic data comprise event data relating to one or more events generated by the distributed control system (Paragraphs 0029-0032).
With regards to Claim 6, Xu teaches the method of Claim 1 as cited above. Xu further teaches:
wherein predicting failure of the first resource comprises predicting resource failure in response to at least one performance metric passing a predetermined threshold (Paragraphs 0029-0030, 0032-0033).
With regards to Claim 7, Xu teaches the method of Claim 1 as cited above. Xu further teaches:
wherein predicting failure of the first resource comprises predicting resource failure in response to log data indicating violation of at least one predetermined rule (Paragraphs 0029-0033).
With regards to Claim 8, Xu teaches the method of Claim 1 as cited above. Xu further teaches:
wherein predicting failure of the first resource comprises predicting resource failure in response to recognition of at least one predetermined event (Paragraphs 0029-0022).
With regards to Claim 9, Xu teaches the method of Claim 1 as cited above. Xu further teaches:
wherein persisting the state of the service comprises check pointing the service to capture a snapshot of the state of the service (Paragraph 0034).
With regards to Claim 10, Xu teaches the method of Claim 9 as cited above. Xu further teaches:
wherein restoring the service at the second resource using the persisted state comprises using an image of the check pointed state of the service to restore the service (Paragraphs 0009, 0034, and 0039).
With regards to Claim 12, Xu teaches the method of Claim 1 as cited above. Xu further teaches:
wherein restoring the service at the second resource comprises first selecting the second resource from a plurality of available resources according to one or more predetermined criteria (Paragraphs 0018-0019, 0022, and 0039-0040).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 13-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu in view of Doshi et al. (U.S. Publication No. 2022/0012149 A1), hereinafter referred to as Doshi.
With regards to Claim 13, Xu teaches the method of Claim 1 as cited above. Xu further teaches:
further comprising using the distributed control system to control an … to carry out a(n) … process following restoration of the service at the second resource (Paragraphs 0009, 0012, 0022-0023, and 0034).
Xu does not explicitly teach:
… industrial plant … industrial …
However, Doshi teaches:
further comprising using the distributed control system to control an industrial plant to carry out an industrial process (Fig. 1; Paragraphs 0026, 0040, 0042, and 0197) following restoration of the service at the … resource (Paragraph 0127).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art in which said subject matter pertains to, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, combine the two distributed control systems using checkpoint-based restoration taught by Xu and Doshi, respectively. Xu describes this type of system in relation to high powered cluster computing (Paragraphs 0006-0009), but does not list a specific application. Doshi teaches that this type of system can be applied to many types of services, including industrial automation, for performances optimizations such as lower latency in said services (Paragraph 0026). The use of a second resource in Xu allows for less downtime and a more proactive migration (Paragraphs 0022-0023).
With regards to Claim 14, Xu teaches:
A resource failure mitigation system for a distributed control system (Paragraphs 0006, 0009, and 0012; Fig. 1), comprising:
a control … that includes a failure predictor and an operator, … including a check point/restore workflow (Paragraphs 0021, 0024, and 0026; Fig. 1);
and a plurality of worker nodes associated with the control (Fig. 1) …;
wherein the control … is further associated with a client (Paragraph 0006) and is configured to:
predict failure of a first resource from the plurality of worker nodes (Fig. 1; Paragraph 0012) executing a service (Paragraphs 0008-0009), wherein the service is provided by a containerized application (Paragraphs 0017-0018 and 0032-0034; Paragraphs 0006; Fig. 1),
persist a state of the service, wherein the state of the service comprises checkpointing the state of a container in which the service is running (Paragraphs 0011-0012 and 0032-0035);
and restore the service at a second resource from the plurality of worker nodes using the persisted state, wherein restoring the service comprises instantiating a new container for the service at the second resource and restoring the service in the new container using the persisted state (Paragraphs 0012, 0022-0023, and 0034).
Xu does not explicitly teach:
… plane node …
… the operator including a check point/restore workflow …
However, Doshi teaches:
A resource failure mitigation system (Fig. 3 and 9; Paragraph 0127), comprising:
a control plane node that includes a failure predictor and an operator, the operator including a check point/restore workflow (Fig. 8 and Paragraph 0109);
and a plurality of worker nodes associated with the control plane node (Paragraphs 0041-0043, 0048, 0113, and 0115; Fig. 4);
wherein the control plane node is further associated with a client and is configured to (Fig. 3; Paragraph 0040):
predict failure of a first resource from the plurality of worker nodes executing a service (Paragraphs 0117 and 0127, stress testing to determine health),
persist a state of the service (Paragraphs 119-0120);
and restore the service at a … resource from the plurality of worker nodes using the persisted state (Paragraph 0127).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art in which said subject matter pertains to, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention, centralize the checkpointing, failure prediction, and migration logics into one entity, as taught by Doshi, in the system of Xu, so that a centralized entity, such as a host, can have easier access to the needed data and algorithms (Doshi, Paragraphs 0119 and 0115 and Fig. 8).
All limitations of Claims 15-20 have been addressed in the analyses of Claims 2-7, respectively. Please see the above rejections for further details.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on July 10th, 2026, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) has been withdrawn due to the amendment.
Arguments regarding the prior art not teaching the newly amended limitations of Claims 1 and 14 are not persuasive. Examiner notes that these features are similar to those of now cancelled Claim 11, which was previously rejected under Xu. While the word containerization is not used in Xu, containerization is taught by Xu. Containerization is not given a limiting definition in Applicant’s specification and thus is being broadly interpreted as known in the art as virtualization over multiple resources (Please see attached Wikipedia definition), which is taught by Xu as cited above. Please see the above rejections for further details.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
IBM, “Using Roving High Availability (HA) Failover in Partitioned Database Environments,” DB2 10.5 FOR Linux, UNIX, and Windows, 2021: teaches failover of computing clusters
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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/G.K.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2113
/MARC DUNCAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2113
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