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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 8/19/2026 has been entered.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-20 are pending of which claims 1, 8 and 15 are in independent form.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claims 1-5, 8-12, and 16-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Natanzon; Assaf (US 9135120 B1) [Natanzon-1], in view of Hatfield; Brian D. et al. (US 20170003883 A1) [Hatfield], in view of Jess; Martin (US 20110246423 A1) [Jess].
Regarding claims 1, 8 and 15, Natanzon-1 discloses, a method comprising: receiving a request to create a snapshot of a consistency group corresponding to a first set of storage objects and a second set of storage objects (Herein, some information is provided for conventional continuous data protection systems having journaling and a replication splitter which may be used in one or more embodiments is provided. A replication may set refer to an association created between the source volume and the local and/or remote target volumes, and a consistency group contains one or more replication sets. A snapshot may be the difference between one consistent image of stored data and the next. The exact time for closing the snapshot may determined dynamically depending on replication policies and the journal of the consistency group [col. 15, ll. 29-39]. Also see [col. 27, ll. 40-45], [col. 28, ll. 30-67]);
instructing a first splitter to complete replication of pending write operations [and queue incoming write operations] targeting the first set of storage objects associated with the consistency group (the method comprising moving a splitter splitting the consistency group to tracking mode, flushing pending IO to the consistency group, stopping replication, moving the consistency group to a second cluster, and starting replication of the consistency group at the second cluster [abstract] and [col. 2, ll. 16-24]. Also see Figs. 6 and 7, both displaying first and second splitters [elements 625 and 660 and 725 and 760]);
instructing a second splitter to complete replication of pending write operations [and queue incoming write operations] targeting the second set of storage objects associated with the consistency group (the method comprising moving a splitter splitting the consistency group to tracking mode, flushing pending IO to the consistency group, stopping replication, moving the consistency group to a second cluster, and starting replication of the consistency group at the second cluster [abstract] and [col. 2, ll. 16-24]. Also see Figs. 6 and 7, both displaying first and second splitters [elements 625 and 660 and 725 and 760]); and
in response to the first splitter and the second splitter replicating the pending write operations [and queuing the incoming write operations], creating a first snapshot for the consistency group (Herein, some information is provided for conventional continuous data protection systems having journaling and a replication splitter which may be used in one or more embodiments is provided. A replication may set refer to an association created between the source volume and the local and/or remote target volumes, and a consistency group contains one or more replication sets. A snapshot may be the difference between one consistent image of stored data and the next. The exact time for closing the snapshot may determined dynamically depending on replication policies and the journal of the consistency group [col. 15, ll. 29-51]. A computer implemented method, system, and computer program product for moving a consistency group from a first replication cluster to a second replication cluster, without journal loss, the method comprising moving a splitter splitting the consistency group to tracking mode, flushing pending IO to the consistency group, stopping replication, moving the consistency group to a second cluster, and starting replication of the consistency group at the second cluster [Abstract]).
However, Natanzon-1 does not explicitly facilitate queue incoming write operations; and queuing the incoming write operations; creating a first snapshot for the consistency group while the incoming write operations are queued.
Jess discloses, queue incoming write operations; and queuing the incoming write operations (where the method includes applying a write Input/Output (I/O) queue interval ¶ [0007]; also see ¶ [0018]-[0022], [0024], [0005]-[0006]);
creating a first snapshot for the consistency group while the incoming write operations are queued (A write I/O queuing mechanism in a storage array controller cache 112 may be used to create a time window during which snapshots may be created over multiple storage arrays 104. The write I/O queuing mechanism may be applied to LUs that are members of a consistency group. A storage array that includes an LU member of a consistency group may be referred to as a participating storage array 114. Each of the participating storage arrays 114 may have a common notion of time, such as through the use of a distributed clock synchronization mechanism 116 ¶ [0017]. Also see ¶ [0020], [0024])
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art at the time of the present invention to combine the teachings of the cited references because Jess’ system would have allowed Natanzon-1 to facilitate queue incoming write operations; and queuing the incoming write operations; creating a first snapshot for the consistency group while the incoming write operations are queued. The motivation to combine is apparent in the Natanzon-1’s reference, because there need for an improved methods for implementing multi-array consistency groups for database backup.
However, neither Natanzon-1 nor Jess explicitly facilitates while maintaining a synchronous replication relationship between the first set of storage objects and the second set of storage objects in a synchronous state; and the synchronous replication relationship is maintained in the synchronous state.
Hatfield discloses, while maintaining a synchronous replication relationship between the first set of storage objects and the second set of storage objects in a synchronous state (maintaining the mirror copy relationships providing synchronous copies between source and target storages ¶ [0004], a mirror copy relationship may maintain a current and previous bitmaps to keep track of updates at the source volume that need to be copied or synchronized to the target storage… updates occur while data is being synchronized get recorded without interfering with the synchronization of the writes as of the recent interval ¶ [0005], active copy relationships … synchronize/copy data from a source storage to a target storage ¶ [0026]);
and the synchronous replication relationship is maintained in the synchronous state (In a storage environment, a storage controller may maintain mirror copy relationships, where a source volume in a mirror copy relationship comprises the storage or volumes from which data is physically copied to a target volume. Failover programs, such as International Business Machines Corporation's (“IBM”) HyperSwap® which is a function in the z/OS® operating system, provides continuous availability for disk failures by maintaining the mirror copy relationships to provide synchronous copies of source (primary) disk volumes in one or more storage systems to one or more target (secondary) volumes in one or more storage systems. (HyperSwap is a registered trademark of IBM in countries throughout the world). When a disk failure is detected, code in the operating system identifies HyperSwap managed volumes and instead of failing the I/O request, HyperSwap switches (or swaps) information in internal control blocks so that the I/O request is driven against the target volume of the mirror copy relationship. Since the target volume is an identical copy of the source volume prior to the failure, the I/O request will succeed with no impact to the program issuing the I/O request, which could be an application program or part of the operating system. This therefore masks the disk failure from the program and avoids an application and/or system outage ¶ [0004]-[0005]; An n−1 active copy relationships are established, wherein each active copy relationship copies data from one of the storages 1 through n−1 as a source storage to one other of the storages 2 through n as a target storage respectively, wherein each active copy relationship includes synchronization information indicating data to copy from the source storage to the target storage of the active copy relationship. At least one inactive copy relationship is established to copy data from one of the storages 1 through n−1 as the source storage to one other of the storages 2 through n as a target storage, such that the source and target storages in the inactive copy relationship are not both also in a same of at least one of the active copy relationships, wherein each of the inactive copy relationships includes synchronization information indicating data to copy from the source storage to the target storage of the inactive copy relationship ¶ [0007]).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art at the time of the present invention to combine the teachings of the cited references because Hatfield’ system would have allowed Natanzon-1 and Jess to facilitates while maintaining a synchronous replication relationship between the first set of storage objects and the second set of storage objects in a synchronous state; and the synchronous replication relationship is maintained in the synchronous state. The motivation to combine is apparent in the Natanzon-1 and Jess’ reference, because there need to improve resynchronizing data between storages using relationships.
Regarding claims 2, 9 and 16, the combination of Natanzon-1, Jess and Hatfield discloses, wherein the first set of objects are hosted by a first node and the second set of objects are hosted by a second node (Natanzon-1: In some embodiments, a replication cluster may be a set of virtual or physical DPAs which replicate a set of consistency groups; the cluster may have one or more nodes. In certain embodiments, the nodes may be used for availability. In at least one embodiment, if a node crashes another node may take the activities of the failed node. In further embodiments, the nodes may provide additional performance by supporting more CPU power and more resources [col. 29, ll. 2-23]).
Regarding claims 3, 10 and 17, the combination of Natanzon-1, Jess and Hatfield discloses, wherein the first set of objects have the synchronous replication relationship with the second set of objects during the creation of the first snapshot (Hatfield: maintaining the mirror copy relationships providing synchronous copies between source and target storages ¶ [0004], a mirror copy relationship may maintain a current and previous bitmaps to keep track of updates at the source volume that need to be copied or synchronized to the target storage… updates occur while data is being synchronized get recorded without interfering with the synchronization of the writes as of the recent interval ¶ [0005], active copy relationships … synchronize/copy data from a source storage to a target storage ¶ [0026], such as synchronous mirroring, asynchronous mirroring or point-in-time copying, or combinations of multiple of these different mirroring types ¶ [0033]).
Regarding claims 4, 11, and 18, the combination of Natanzon-1, Jess and Hatfield discloses, in response to the first splitter and the second splitter replicating the pending write operations and [queuing the incoming write operations], instructing the first node to create the first snapshot of the first set of storage objects (Natanzon-1: Herein, some information is provided for conventional continuous data protection systems having journaling and a replication splitter which may be used in one or more embodiments is provided. A replication may set refer to an association created between the source volume and the local and/or remote target volumes, and a consistency group contains one or more replication sets. A snapshot may be the difference between one consistent image of stored data and the next. The exact time for closing the snapshot may determined dynamically depending on replication policies and the journal of the consistency group [col. 15, ll. 29-51]. A computer implemented method, system, and computer program product for moving a consistency group from a first replication cluster to a second replication cluster, without journal loss, the method comprising moving a splitter splitting the consistency group to tracking mode, flushing pending IO to the consistency group, stopping replication, moving the consistency group to a second cluster, and starting replication of the consistency group at the second cluster [Abstract]);
queuing the incoming write operations (Jess: where the method includes applying a write Input/Output (I/O) queue interval ¶ [0007]; also see ¶ [0018]-[0022], [0024], [0005]-[0006]).
Regarding claims 5, 12 and 19, the combination of Natanzon-1, Jess and Hatfield discloses, in response to the first splitter and the second splitter replicating the pending write operations and [queuing the incoming write operations], instructing the second node to create a second snapshot of the second set of storage objects for the consistency group (Natanzon-1: Herein, some information is provided for conventional continuous data protection systems having journaling and a replication splitter which may be used in one or more embodiments is provided. A replication may set refer to an association created between the source volume and the local and/or remote target volumes, and a consistency group contains one or more replication sets. A snapshot may be the difference between one consistent image of stored data and the next. The exact time for closing the snapshot may determined dynamically depending on replication policies and the journal of the consistency group [col. 15, ll. 29-51]. A computer implemented method, system, and computer program product for moving a consistency group from a first replication cluster to a second replication cluster, without journal loss, the method comprising moving a splitter splitting the consistency group to tracking mode, flushing pending IO to the consistency group, stopping replication, moving the consistency group to a second cluster, and starting replication of the consistency group at the second cluster [Abstract]);
queuing the incoming write operations (Jess: where the method includes applying a write Input/Output (I/O) queue interval ¶ [0007]; also see ¶ [0018]-[0022], [0024], [0005]-[0006]).
Claims 6, 13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Natanzon-1, in view of Jess in view of Hatfield in view of Natanzon; Assaf et al. (US 8745004 B1) [Natanzon-2].
Regarding claims 6, 13 and 20, the combination of Natanzon-1, Jess and Hatfield discloses, in response to the first snapshot and the second snapshot being successfully created, instructing the first splitter and the second splitter [to process queued write operations] [and to resume replicating subsequently received write operations] (Natanzon-1: Herein, some information is provided for conventional continuous data protection systems having journaling and a replication splitter which may be used in one or more embodiments is provided. A replication may set refer to an association created between the source volume and the local and/or remote target volumes, and a consistency group contains one or more replication sets. A snapshot may be the difference between one consistent image of stored data and the next. The exact time for closing the snapshot may determined dynamically depending on replication policies and the journal of the consistency group [col. 15, ll. 29-51]. A computer implemented method, system, and computer program product for moving a consistency group from a first replication cluster to a second replication cluster, without journal loss, the method comprising moving a splitter splitting the consistency group to tracking mode, flushing pending IO to the consistency group, stopping replication, moving the consistency group to a second cluster, and starting replication of the consistency group at the second cluster [Abstract]);
to process queued write operations (Jess: where the method includes applying a write Input/Output (I/O) queue interval ¶ [0007]; also see ¶ [0018]-[0022], [0024], [0005]-[0006], [Abstract]).
However, neither one of Natanzon-1, Jess or Hatfield explicitly facilitates and to resume replicating subsequently received write operations.
Natanzon-2 discloses, and to resume replicating subsequently received write operations (Returning to FIG. 4A, once the revert is completed, replication of the production volume (430) between the production site and the replication site according to the production site DPA 312 and the replication site DPA 324 may then resume [col. 11, ll. 4-26]. Also see [Abstract]).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art at the time of the present invention to combine the teachings of the cited references because Natanzon-2’ system would have allowed Natanzon-1, jess and Hatfield to facilitates and to resume replicating subsequently received write operations. The motivation to combine is apparent in the Natanzon-1, Jess and Hatfield’s reference, because there need for an improved data replication by minimize the down time.
Claims 7, and 14, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Natanzon-1, in view of Jess in view of Hatfield in view of WEI; DANNY et al. (US 20160328168 A1) [Wei].
Regarding claims 7, and 14, the combination of Natanzon-1, Jess and Hatfield discloses, the request to create the snapshot of the consistency group (Natanzon-1: Herein, some information is provided for conventional continuous data protection systems having journaling and a replication splitter which may be used in one or more embodiments is provided. A replication may set refer to an association created between the source volume and the local and/or remote target volumes, and a consistency group contains one or more replication sets. A snapshot may be the difference between one consistent image of stored data and the next. The exact time for closing the snapshot may determined dynamically depending on replication policies and the journal of the consistency group [col. 15, ll. 29-39]. Also see [col. 27, ll. 40-45], [col. 28, ll. 30-67]).
However, neither one of Natanzon-1, Jess, or Hatfield explicitly facilitates providing an indication that [the request to create the snapshot of the consistency group] is successful based upon both the first snapshot of the first set of storage objects and the second snapshot of the second set of storage objects successfully completing.
Wei discloses, providing an indication that [the request to create the snapshot of the consistency group] is successful based upon both the first snapshot of the first set of storage objects and the second snapshot of the second set of storage objects successfully completing (Once the data chunk is stored in the in-memory volume snapshot buffer, the write request may be performed and acknowledged as complete. The data chunk may be sent to the remote snapshot data store asynchronously with regard to the acknowledgment of the write request [Abstract]. Also see ¶ [0019], [0037], [0039]-[0040]).
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skilled in the art at the time of the present invention to combine the teachings of the cited references because Wei’ system would have allowed Natanzon-1, Jess and Hatfield to facilitates providing an indication that [the request to create the snapshot of the consistency group] is successful based upon both the first snapshot of the first set of storage objects and the second snapshot of the second set of storage objects successfully completing. The motivation to combine is apparent in the Natanzon-1, Jess and Hatfield’s reference, because there need for an improved write optimization for block-based storage performing snapshot operations.
Conclusion
The examiner requests, in response to this Office action, support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line no(s) in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the examiner in prosecuting the application.
When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111(c).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMMAD S ROSTAMI whose telephone number is (571)270-1980. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m..
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9/2/2026
/MOHAMMAD S ROSTAMI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2154
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