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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Information Disclosure Statement
As required by M.P.E.P. 609 (C), the applicant’s submission of the information Disclosure Statement dated 09/24/2025 is acknowledged by the examiner and the cited references have been considered in the examination of the claims now pending. As required by M.P.E.P. 609 C(2), a copy of the PTOL-1449 initialed and dated by the examiner is attached to the instant office action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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, 7-11 and 14-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Qiao (Pub. No.: US 2008/0086600).
Regarding independent claims 1, 7 and 14, Qiao discloses a storage system (Fig.1 and [0056]: computer system 100) comprising:
a plurality of multitenant storage nodes (Fig.4 and [0058]: adaptive caching modules 414-418 and system-wide adaptive caching module 422) comprising local storage (Fig.4 and [0058]: free page list and cache list 424);
a plurality of single-tenant file system nodes (Fig.4 and [0058]: applications 402-406 and respective vnodes 408-412); and
a processing device (Fig.1 and [0056]: processor 102) operatively coupled to the plurality of multitenant storage nodes and the plurality of single-tenant file system nodes (Fig.1, Fig.4, [0056] and [0058]: processor 102 operating with the adaptive3 caching/file-system architecture), the processing device (Fig.1 and [0056]: processor 102) configured to:
provide, via the plurality of multitenant storage nodes, file system access to an object store (Fig.3, Fig.4, [0020], [0021] and [0058]: applications 302-306 / 402-406 access pages of files through respective vnodes 308-312 / 408-412 and the shared caching architecture, wherein device driver 316 retrieves requested pages from the storage device when the pages are not present in the cache), the plurality of multitenant storage nodes retaining data objects associated with one or more tenants in the local storage to serve read requests from the one or more of the plurality of single-tenant file system nodes (Fig.3, [0020] and [0021]: a caching architecture which includes applications 302-306 and vnodes 308-312, wherein a vnode is a reference to a file on the storage device. When an application accesses a page of a file, cache list 315 is first checked to determine whether the page exists in cache list 315. If so, the page is copied to the address space of the application and the page is released from cache list 315. If the application performs a read operation on the page, then the released page is placed at the head of cache list 315. If the application performs a write operation on the page, then the released page is placed at the tail of cache list 315); and
modify, for one or more of the plurality of multitenant storage nodes, a caching policy that governs retention of data objects associated with the tenants in the local storage of the one or more of the plurality of multitenant storage nodes based on access patterns observed from the one or more of the plurality of single-tenant file system nodes (Fig.4 and [0058]: adaptive caching modules 414-418 determine access patterns and cache hit rates for files associated with respective applications 402-406, and system-wide adaptive caching module 422 determines which pages are prefetched and cached; [0049]-[0052]: statistics regarding access patterns are used to determine which pages are retained in the cache, and the caching policy is changed when the access pattern changes; Fig.5 and [0080]: monitoring accesses to the file at step 502, determining an access pattern at step 504, and using the determined access pattern to adjust the caching policy at step 506; Fig.8, [0097] and [0098]: determining whether file pages are retained in or invalidated from the cache).
Regarding claims 2, 8 and 15, Qiao further discloses wherein the processing device is further configured to provide a read cache for data objects stored in the object store (Fig.3, [0020] and [0021]: a caching architecture which includes applications 302-306 and vnodes 308-312, wherein a vnode is a reference to a file on the storage device. When an application accesses a page of a file, cache list 315 is first checked to determine whether the page exists in cache list 315. If so, the page is copied to the address space of the application and the page is released from cache list 315. If the application performs a read operation on the page, then the released page is placed at the head of cache list 315. If the application performs a write operation on the page, then the released page is placed at the tail of cache list 315).
Regarding claims 3, 9 and 16, Qiao further discloses wherein the plurality of multitenant storage nodes are distributed across a plurality of clusters (Fig.4, [0058] and [0059]: adaptive caching modules 414-418 determine access patterns and cache hit rates for files associated with respective applications 402-406, and system-wide adaptive caching module 422 determines which pages are prefetched and cached).
Regarding claims 4, 10 and 17, Qiao further discloses the processing device is configured to adjust a proportion of data objects associated with a tenant that are retained in the local storage of one or more of the plurality of multitenant storage nodes (Fig.9 and [0087]: adjusting cache-resource allocation and increasing the quota for a file).
Regarding claims 5, 11 and 18, Qiao further discloses wherein the processing device is configured to change a retention duration for data objects in the local storage of one or more of the plurality of multitenant storage nodes based on a frequency of access by the one or more of the plurality of single-tenant file system nodes (Fig.5, [0049]-[0052] and [0080]: monitoring file patterns and adjusting the caching policy based on the determined access patterns).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 12, 13, 19 and 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claim 6, 12 and 19 identify the distinct features “wherein the processing device is configured to increase a percentage of data objects cached in response to a cache hit rate falling below a threshold ", which are not taught or suggested by the prior art of records.
Claim 13 and 20 identify the distinct features “wherein the instructions cause the processing device to provision resources, in response to a resource usage associated with a tenant, by upscaling one or more of the plurality of single-tenant file system nodes associated with the tenant", which are not taught or suggested by the prior art of records.
Claims 6, 12, 13, 19 and 20 would be allowable over the prior art of record because the claimed features as mentioned above in combination with other claimed features are not recited or suggested by the prior art of records.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Ben Dayan et al. (Pub. No.: US 2017/0004131) “Virtual File System Supporting Multi-Tiered Storage”
Considered for teachings related to a plurality of computing devices that are interconnected via a local area network and comprise circuitry configured to implement a virtual file system comprising one or more instances of a virtual file system front end and one or more instances of a virtual file system back end.
Does not disclose or suggest the processing device configured to: provide, via the plurality of multitenant storage nodes, file system access to an object store, the plurality of multitenant storage nodes retaining data objects associated with one or more tenants in the local storage to serve read requests from the one or more of the plurality of single-tenant file system nodes; and modify, for one or more of the plurality of multitenant storage nodes, a caching policy that governs retention of data objects associated with the tenants in the local storage of the one or more of the plurality of multitenant storage nodes based on access patterns observed from the one or more of the plurality of single-tenant file system nodes.
Kitamura (Pub. No.: US 2006/0010169) “Hierarchical Storage Management System”
Considered for teachings related to a storage system, in particular to management of a hierarchical storage system.
Does not disclose or suggest the processing device configured to: provide, via the plurality of multitenant storage nodes, file system access to an object store, the plurality of multitenant storage nodes retaining data objects associated with one or more tenants in the local storage to serve read requests from the one or more of the plurality of single-tenant file system nodes; and modify, for one or more of the plurality of multitenant storage nodes, a caching policy that governs retention of data objects associated with the tenants in the local storage of the one or more of the plurality of multitenant storage nodes based on access patterns observed from the one or more of the plurality of single-tenant file system nodes.
Any inquiry concerning this communication should be directed to Yong Choe at telephone number 571-270-1053 or email to yong.choe@uspto.gov. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 10:00 am to 6:30pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rutz, Jared Ian can be reached on (571) 272-5535. Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application should be directed to the TC 2100 whose telephone number is (571) 272-2100.
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/YONG J CHOE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2135
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