NON-FINAL 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 .
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 6, 10, 12, 17, and 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Calloway (US 20100017647).
Regarding claim 1, Callaway teaches A cloud failure remediation method comprising: receiving a problem event from a problematic server running a workload, the problem event indicating a reported problem occurred on the problematic server while running the workload; (“Instead, the primary instance need only be designed to adhere to specific basic operating guidelines and shut itself down when it cannot do so. By externally controlling the ability of the primary instance to successfully adhere to its operating guidelines, the fault tolerant mechanisms of the disclosed embodiments can recognize error conditions and easily failover from the primary instance to the backup instance” ¶55); creating a copy machine identical to the problematic server; transferring the workload from the problematic server to the copy machine; (“The disclosed embodiments relate to providing fault tolerant operation for a primary instance, such as a process, thread, application, processor, etc., using an active copy-cat instance, a.k.a. backup instance, that mirrors operations in the primary instance” ¶55); receiving, from the copy machine, an execution result of executing the workload; and generating a diagnosis result for the reported problem based on the execution result (“The outputs of the backup instance are then compared with the outputs of the primary instance to ensure correct operation.” ¶55).
Regarding claim 6, Calloway teaches wherein transferring the workload from the problematic server to the copy machine includes: transferring an operation state of the workload over with the workload (“For example, at a hardware level, fault tolerance may be achieved by duplexing each hardware component, e.g. disks are mirrored, multiple processors are "lock-stepped" together and their outputs are compared for correctness, etc.” ¶4).
Regarding claim 10, Calloway teaches transferring the workload to a normal server; resuming an execution of the workload on the normal server; and obtaining execution results of the workload from the normal server (“As will be described below, the primary instance's 502 dependence on completing an external transaction with the database 506 and its operation to generate at least one response or output for each input received confirming the successful processing thereof,” ¶10).
Regarding claim 12, Calloway teaches cloud failure remediation system comprising: a cloud system including a plurality of servers; and a cloud orchestration host communicatively coupled to the cloud system and configured to:receive a problem event from a problematic server running a workload, the problem event indicating a reported problem occurred on the problematic server while running the workload; (“Instead, the primary instance need only be designed to adhere to specific basic operating guidelines and shut itself down when it cannot do so. By externally controlling the ability of the primary instance to successfully adhere to its operating guidelines, the fault tolerant mechanisms of the disclosed embodiments can recognize error conditions and easily failover from the primary instance to the backup instance” ¶55 ); create a copy machine identical to the problematic server; transfer the workload from the problematic server to the copy machine; (“The disclosed embodiments relate to providing fault tolerant operation for a primary instance, such as a process, thread, application, processor, etc., using an active copy-cat instance, a.k.a. backup instance, that mirrors operations in the primary instance” ¶55 ); receive, from the copy machine, an execution result of executing the workload; and generate a diagnosis result for the reported problem based on the execution result. (“The outputs of the backup instance are then compared with the outputs of the primary instance to ensure correct operation.” ¶55).
Regarding claim 17 Calloway teaches wherein the cloud orchestration host is further configured to: transfer an operation state of the workload over with the workload (“For example, at a hardware level, fault tolerance may be achieved by duplexing each hardware component, e.g. disks are mirrored, multiple processors are "lock-stepped" together and their outputs are compared for correctness, etc.” ¶4).
Regarding claim 21 Calloway teaches wherein the cloud orchestration host is further configured to: transfer the workload to a normal server; resume an execution of the workload on the normal server; and obtain execution results of the workload from the normal server (“As will be described below, the primary instance's 502 dependence on completing an external transaction with the database 506 and its operation to generate at least one response or output for each input received confirming the successful processing thereof,” ¶10).
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(s) 2, 3, 13, 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Calloway in view of Smith (US 20240022609).
Regarding claim 2, Calloway teaches the method of claim 1, but does not teach wherein creating the copy machine identical to the problematic server includes: searching a cloud system for a candidate server with same hardware configurations as the problematic server; and applying a firmware and configuration parameters of the problematic server to the candidate server to create the copy machine.
Smith teaches wherein creating the copy machine identical to the problematic server includes: searching a cloud system for a candidate server with same hardware configurations as the problematic server; and applying a firmware and configuration parameters of the problematic server to the candidate server to create the copy machine (“top-half update package 1504 may include a Bill of Materials (BoM) describing software, firmware, drivers, or hardware components. The BoM may include attestation reference values for matching attestation evidence, endorsed values that represent attributes and properties of the component known to the component vendor, supplier, or deployment agent. The bottom-half update package 1514 may contain updated firmware, software, settings, configuration parameters, calibration parameters, policies or other information related to applying the update.” ¶107). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing of the claimed invention to combine the server testing with a second server operating with a first as taught by Calloway with the cloning and updated as taught by Smith. Cloning a server allows for operations, such as updating, to be completed without disruption (Smith ¶110).
Regarding claim 3, Smith teaches The method of claim 2, wherein applying the firmware and the configuration parameters of the problematic server to the candidate server includes: reading a firmware version and the configuration parameters of the problematic server (“The bottom-half update package 1514 may contain updated firmware, software, settings, configuration parameters, calibration parameters, policies or other information related to applying the update. It may also contain attestation verification policies and resource descriptions that identify resources that are equivalent or similar that may substitute for other resources that may differ in terms of vendor, model, version, etc” ¶107); updating a firmware of the server in response to the firmware version of the candidate server being different from a firmware version of the problematic server; and setting the configuration parameters of the candidate server to be same as the problematic server (“The top-half update package 1504 also may contain updated workload code, settings, configuration parameters, quality-of-service policies, key performance indicators, metrics, data source, data sink parameters, etc.” ¶108).
Regarding claim 13, Smith teaches wherein the cloud orchestration host is further configured to: search a cloud system for a candidate server with same hardware configurations as the problematic server; and apply a firmware and configuration parameters of the problematic server to the candidate server to create the copy machine. (“top-half update package 1504 may include a Bill of Materials (BoM) describing software, firmware, drivers, or hardware components. The BoM may include attestation reference values for matching attestation evidence, endorsed values that represent attributes and properties of the component known to the component vendor, supplier, or deployment agent. The bottom-half update package 1514 may contain updated firmware, software, settings, configuration parameters, calibration parameters, policies or other information related to applying the update.” ¶107).
Regarding claim 14, Smith teaches read a firmware version and the configuration parameters of the problematic server (“The bottom-half update package 1514 may contain updated firmware, software, settings, configuration parameters, calibration parameters, policies or other information related to applying the update. It may also contain attestation verification policies and resource descriptions that identify resources that are equivalent or similar that may substitute for other resources that may differ in terms of vendor, model, version, etc” ¶107); update a firmware of the server in response to the firmware version of the candidate server being different from a firmware version of the problematic server; and set the configuration parameters of the candidate server to be same as the problematic server (“The top-half update package 1504 also may contain updated workload code, settings, configuration parameters, quality-of-service policies, key performance indicators, metrics, data source, data sink parameters, etc.” ¶108)
Claim(s) 7 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Calloway in view of Bennah (US 20140229590).
Regarding claim 7, Calloway teaches wherein generating the diagnosis result for the reported problem includes: determining that the reported problem is caused by a failure of the problematic server in response to the reported problem being not reproduced on the copy machine (“The backup failure detection logic 528 monitors the output(s) of both the primary and backup instances 502, 504 for a given input(s) and determines whether they match or not. In one embodiment, a mismatch triggers a fault in the backup instance 504. In an alternate embodiment, a mismatch triggers a fail over from the primary instance 502 to the backup instance 504 as described herein” ¶68). Calloway does not teach and determining that the reported problem is tied to a mismatch between hardware configurations and the workload in response to the reported problem being reproduced on the copy machine.
Bennah teaches and determining that the reported problem is tied to a mismatch between hardware configurations and the workload in response to the reported problem being reproduced on the copy machine (“In this case, unintentional problems can occur when failing-over to the backup server. It may also cause the system to not fail over given the mismatch in configurations from the primary server to the backup server” ¶5). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing of the claimed invention to combine the paired server testing of Calloway with the detection of a configuration mismatch as taught by Bennah. A configuration mismatch may be the cause of a failure itself (Bennah ¶5).
Regarding claim 18, Calloway teaches determinine that the reported problem is caused by a failure of the problematic server in response to the reported problem being not reproduced on the copy machine (“The backup failure detection logic 528 monitors the output(s) of both the primary and backup instances 502, 504 for a given input(s) and determines whether they match or not. In one embodiment, a mismatch triggers a fault in the backup instance 504. In an alternate embodiment, a mismatch triggers a fail over from the primary instance 502 to the backup instance 504 as described herein” ¶68). Bennah teaches and determine that the reported problem is tied to a mismatch between hardware configurations and the workload in response to the reported problem being reproduced on the copy machine (“In this case, unintentional problems can occur when failing-over to the backup server. It may also cause the system to not fail over given the mismatch in configurations from the primary server to the backup server” ¶5).
Claim(s) 11 and 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Calloway in view of Morosan (US 20170235600).
Regarding claim 11, Calloway teaches … resuming an execution of the workload on the normal server; and obtaining execution results of the workload from the normal server (As shown in FIG. 1, in parallel with attempting store the transaction (Blocks 110, 126), for those inputs which do not require waiting, the processing may continue to transmit the Acknowledgments/Responses (Blocks 116, 132) without waiting for the database 506 to report on the completion of the store (Blocks 112, 114, 128, 130). It will be appreciated that the primary and backup instances 502, 504 may be suitably programmed to identify those transactions which depend upon completion of the database 506 operation and those that do not.” ¶73). Calloway does not teach further comprising: transferring the workload to a normal server in parallel with creating the copy machine identical to the problematic server in an isolated quarantine;
Morosan teaches further comprising: transferring the workload to a normal server in parallel with creating the copy machine identical to the problematic server in an isolated quarantine; (“It is to be appreciated that the server 62e can be used to substitute any of the previously discussed servers such that each of the processes and/or threads of execution described above can be dedicated on to a processor core and run in isolation from the operating system” ¶208). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the filing of the claimed invention to combine the server testing methods of Calloway with the testing of a server in isolation as described by Morosan. Limiting the access that each component has reduces the probability of one interfering with another (¶209).
Regarding claim 22 Calloway teaches … resume an execution of the workload on the normal server; and obtain execution results of the workload from the normal server. (As shown in FIG. 1, in parallel with attempting store the transaction (Blocks 110, 126), for those inputs which do not require waiting, the processing may continue to transmit the Acknowledgments/Responses (Blocks 116, 132) without waiting for the database 506 to report on the completion of the store (Blocks 112, 114, 128, 130). It will be appreciated that the primary and backup instances 502, 504 may be suitably programmed to identify those transactions which depend upon completion of the database 506 operation and those that do not.” ¶73). Morosan teaches transfer the workload to a normal server in parallel to create the copy machine identical to the problematic server in an isolated quarantine; (“It is to be appreciated that the server 62e can be used to substitute any of the previously discussed servers such that each of the processes and/or threads of execution described above can be dedicated on to a processor core and run in isolation from the operating system” ¶208).
Claim Objections
Claims 4, 5, 8, 9, 15, 16, 19, and 20 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
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SEAN KEVIN MCNAMARA whose telephone number is (703)756-1884. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 7:30-5:00 EST.
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/SEAN KEVIN MCNAMARA/Examiner, Art Unit 2113 /BRYCE P BONZO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2113
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