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 .
Claims 1-24 are presented for examination.
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, 5, 9-13, 21-24, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by MacNamara et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2021/0117307 A1 (hereinafter MacNamara).
As per claims 1, 23, 24, MacNamara discloses a method, comprising:
receiving a first candidate scenario comprising a first proposed modification to a routing configuration (see receiving a potential platform configuration, or first candidate scenario as claimed, to be evaluated on page 5 section [0091]) of a fabric (see fabric configuration on page 12 section [0166]) organized according to a fabric topology (see configuration including physical links and fabric topology and fabric configurations on page 12 section [0166]), wherein the fabric comprises a set of interconnected switches (see network switches as part of the network configuration on page 9 section [0138]) that provide multiple redundant pathways (see interconnect fabrics with 2D mesh interconnect with multiple redundant pathways on page 8 section [0126]) for routing data between a set of computing devices linked to the fabric (see fabric configuration for routing physical links to other hardware devices on page 12 section [0166]);
determining, based at least on the fabric topology (see fabric topologies with the fabric configurations on page 12 section [0166]) and telemetry data (see network telemetry data on page 9 section [0146]) associated with the fabric, a first performance metric corresponding to the first candidate scenario (see monitoring to obtain performance data and telemetry data from the current platform configuration, or first performance metric as claimed, on page 6 section [0108]);
based at least on the first performance metric, determining whether a first criterion (see workload requirements, or first criterion as claimed, on page 6 section [0109]) for proceeding with implementing the first candidate scenario is satisfied (see workload requirement, or first criterion as claimed, satisfied by the current configuration, or first candidate scenario as claimed, on page 6 section [0109]);
responsive to determining that the first criterion is satisfied, generating an instruction for implementing the first candidate scenario (see generating a report, or instructions as claimed, to deploy the configuration that satisfied the workload, or first criterion as claimed, on page 7 section [0113]);
wherein implementing the first candidate scenario comprises implementing the first proposed modification to the routing configuration of the fabric (see deploy the optimal configuration, or first candidate scenario as claimed, on page 7 section [0114]);
wherein the method is performed by at least one device including a hardware processor (see fabric configuration is implemented on other hardware devices in the fabric on page 12 section [0166]).
As per claim 5, MacNamara discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the first performance metric comprises a first capacity metric corresponding to the first candidate scenario (see configuration is based on capacity of resource workload such as network bandwidth on page 3 section [0043]), wherein the first capacity metric is associated with at least a first portion of the fabric (see workload requirement, or first capacity metric as claimed, requires fulfillment of network performance on page 5 section [0094]).
As per claim 9, MacNamara discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the telemetry data comprises a switch operating metric indicative of an operating state of one or more switch of the fabric (see telemetry data including network telemetry data including power and workload of the network devices on page 9 section [0146]).
As per claim 10, MacNamara discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the telemetry data comprises a physical hardware metric indicative of an operating state of one or more physical hardware devices of the fabric (see telemetry data including network telemetry data including power and workload of the network devices on page 9 section [0146]).
As per claim 11, MacNamara discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the telemetry data comprises a management interface metric indicative of an operating state of one or more infrastructure management services associated with the fabric (see telemetry data including management interface metric such as Cache Monitoring Technology, Cache Allocation Technology, and Code and Data Prioritization telemetry data on page 9 section [0146]).
As per claim 12, MacNamara discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the telemetry data comprises an operational metric indicative of an operating state of one or more pathways for routing data through the fabric (see telemetry data including network telemetry data of the network devices on page 9 section [0146]).
As per claim 13, MacNamara discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the first performance metric comprises a redundancy metric indicative of a level of redundancy of at least a first portion of the fabric (see performance metrics of the network devices on page 6 section [0108] and see interconnect fabric network devices in 2D mesh interconnect for redundancy on page 8 section [126]).
As per claim 21, MacNamara discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving a second candidate scenario comprising a second proposed modification to the routing configuration of the fabric (see receiving and evaluating another configuration, or second candidate scenario as claimed, on page 6 section [0110]); determining, based at least in part on the fabric topology and the telemetry data, a second performance metric corresponding to the second candidate scenario (see performing performance metrics on the candidate scenario configurations on page 6 section [0108]); based at least on the second performance metric, determining whether a second criterion for proceeding with implementing the second candidate scenario is met (see determining if the current configuration in evaluation met the workload requirements on page 6 section [0109]); responsive to determining that the second criterion is unmet, refraining from modifying the routing configuration of the fabric based on the second candidate scenario (see not running the configuration that failed the workload requirements on page 7 section [0113]).
As per claim 22, MacNamara discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising: receiving a second candidate scenario comprising a second proposed modification to the routing configuration of the fabric, wherein the first candidate scenario and the second candidate scenario represent alternative scenarios for modifying the routing configuration of the fabric (see receiving and evaluating another configuration, or second candidate scenario as claimed, on page 6 section [0110]); determining, based at least on the fabric topology and the telemetry data, a second performance metric corresponding to the second candidate scenario (see monitoring to obtain performance data and telemetry data from the current platform configuration in evaluation, or second performance metric as claimed, on page 6 section [0108]); further based on the second performance metric, determining whether the first criterion (see workload requirements, or first criterion as claimed, on page 6 section [0109]) for proceeding with implementing the first candidate scenario is satisfied (see workload requirement, or first criterion as claimed, satisfied by the current configuration, or first candidate scenario as claimed, on page 6 section [0109]); wherein determining that the first criterion is satisfied comprises: determining that the first performance metric exceeds the second performance metric (see determining which configurations provide the optimal performance in view of the performance metrics and workload requirement on page 7 section [0113]); and selecting the first candidate scenario over the second candidate scenario responsive to determining that the first performance metric exceeds the second performance metric (see selecting the optimal configuration with the best performance metrics to be deployed on page 7 section [114]).
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 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over MacNamara et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2021/0117307 A1 (hereinafter MacNamara), and further in view of Hyatt et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2026/02200667 A1 (hereinafter Hyatt).
As per claim 15, MacNamara do not disclose expressly: wherein the fabric comprises a remote direct memory access (RDMA) fabric, and wherein the first proposed modification indicates modifying a quantity of available pathways between a first computing device and a second computing device via the RDMA fabric.
Hyatt teaches: wherein the fabric comprises a remote direct memory access (RDMA) fabric (see use of Remote Direct Memory Access RDMA operations in fabric network on page 35-36 section [0273]), and wherein the first proposed modification indicates modifying a quantity of available pathways between a first computing device and a second computing device via the RDMA fabric (see checking the pathway for read and write operations between external entity devices using RDMA operations on page 36 section [0273]).
MacNamara and Hyatt are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, network device management systems. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to use remote direct memory access fabric operations. The motivation for doing so would have been to allow read and write operation from external entities (see page 36 section [0273] in Hyatt). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine MacNamara and Hyatt for the benefit of using remote direct memory access (RDMA) fabric to perform operations to obtain the invention as specified in claim 15.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, 6-8, 14, 16-20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Mellquist et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2019/0215245 A1. Fabric management device to monitor set of network performance metrics and dynamically configure the network fabric (see Abstract and Figure 7).
Kolar et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2022/0385569 A1. Predictive routing service based on estimated performance metrics (see section [0087]).
Hyatt et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2025/0199991 A1. RDMA network access (see section [0168]).
Grunwald et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2021/0081432 A1. Performance metric for storage replication policy (see section [0353]).
Lo et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2026/0142961 A1. Monitoring telemetry for performance metrics for network fabric health management (see section [0124]).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALAN S CHOU whose telephone number is (571)272-5779. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00-5:00 EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chris L Parry can be reached at (571)272-8328. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ALAN S CHOU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2451
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