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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite methods and systems for presenting an allocation recommendation based on resource consumption and resource availability.
The limitations in Independent Claims 1, 10 and 16 of identifying a type of workload based on resource consumption patterns and presenting an allocation recommendation based on that information, as drafted, are processes that, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, covers steps that could reasonably be performed in the mind, including with the aid of pen and paper, but for the recitation of generic computer components. That is, the limitations of “identifying, based on utilization patterns for the one or more storage systems, one or more workload types associated with resource consumption within the one or more storage systems,” in Claims 1 , 10 and 16 as drafted, are processes that, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, recite the abstract idea of mental processes. These limitations encompass a human mind carrying out these functions through observation, evaluation judgment and/or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, these limitations recite and fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims recite the following additional elements “determining a resource availability for one or more storage systems of a plurality of storage systems associated with different cloud storage environments” and “presenting, based on the resource availability and resource consumption associated with the one or more workload types, an allocation recommendation for placing a workload on the one or more storage systems” in Claims 1, 10 and 16, these limitations do nothing more than add insignificant extra solution activity to the judicial exception, such as data gathering and outputting the results of the abstract idea, see MPEP 2106.05(g).
Further, the “memory” and “processing device” elements of Claim 10 and the “non-transitory computer readable storage medium” element of Claim 16 are recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component, see MPEP 2106.05(f). Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, thus failing to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements which recite the “determining a resource availability...” and “presenting... an allocation recommendation...,” of Claims 1, 10 and 16; the “memory” and “processing device” elements of Claim 10; and the “non-transitory computer readable storage medium” element of Claim 16, amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using well-known, routine and conventional generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept. Thus, Claims 1, 10 and 16 are not patent eligible under 35 U.S.C.101.
With regard to the individual dependent claims:
Claims 2, 11 and 17 recite, “presenting the resource availability and the allocation recommendation via a user interface configured to display historical utilization data and projected future utilization metrics for the one or more storage systems.”
Claim 9 recites, “initiating, based on the allocation recommendation, a configuration change for at least one storage system to support deployment of the workload.”
These limitations of Claims 2, 9, 11 and 17 recite further elements at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components, see MPEP 2106.05(f). Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea and they cannot provide an inventive concept.
Claims 3 and 18 recite, “wherein determining the resource availability comprises calculating, for each of the plurality of storage systems, a busyness factor based on utilization of at least one system resource.”
Claims 4 and 13 recite, “wherein the resource availability is determined for a storage system that is part of a fleet of storage systems across distinct failure domains.”
Claims 5, 14 and 19 recite, “wherein presenting the allocation recommendation comprises identifying a recommended storage system for the workload based on a comparison of resource availability across the plurality of storage systems.”
Claims 6 and 15 recite, “wherein identifying the one or more workload types comprises detecting workload types based on input/output patterns associated with the one or more storage systems.”
Claim 7 recites, “generating, based on the resource availability and workload types, a projection of resource utilization trends for at least one of the one or more storage systems.”
Claims 8 and 20 recite, “determining, based on the allocation recommendation, a migration operation to relocate an existing workload from a first storage system to a second storage system.”
These limitations of Claims 3-8, 13-15 and 18-20, as drafted, are processes that, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, recite the abstract idea of a mental process. These limitations encompass a human mind carrying out this function through observation, evaluation judgment and/or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, these limitations recite and fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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)(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.
Claims 1, 3-10, 12-16 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Greenwood et al. (US Patent 10,353,634).
With regard to Claim 1, Greenwood teaches a method comprising:
determining a resource availability for one or more storage systems of a plurality of storage systems associated with different cloud storage environments (Col. 2 ll. 4-16: “embodiments provide for the placement and movement of data volumes, and other such resource allocations, based at least in part upon the types of volumes available and an observed and/or prediction usage pattern... data volumes can be created on specific storage tiers that are selected specifically to be of adequate performance... Storage tiers can include... types of storage systems, such as... general cloud storage systems.” Col. 17 ll. 2-5: “the determination involves a periodic sweep of the relevant fleet of storage devices in order to determine available capacity, types of capacity available, and how those types are optimized.”);
identifying, based on utilization patterns for the one or more storage systems, one or more workload types associated with resource consumption within the one or more storage systems (Col. 2 ll. 20-24: “Once the data volume begins accepting I/O requests, for example, the usage of that data volume can be monitored and analyzed to attempt to determine patterns in the usage, or other such metrics, that can be used to determine a type of workload for the data volume.” Col. 17 ll. 5-0: “By tracking the usage and determining any usage patterns present, the workload can be classified as a type of workload appropriate for certain types of volumes and/or certain types of hardware.”); and
presenting, based on the resource availability and resource consumption associated with the one or more workload types, an allocation recommendation for placing a workload on the one or more storage systems (Col. 16 ln. 57 – Col. 17 ln. 2: “suggestions will be made to the customer regarding tiers of storage that might be more optimal for a particular workload based on observed behavior and other such information. The customer can then determine whether or not to migrate a portion or all of the data volume... In some embodiments a customer may approve certain migrations or data types for automatic performance, while other migrations or data types may be blacklisted or may require customer approval, among other such options.”).
With regard to Claim 3, Greenwood teaches the method of claim 1, wherein determining the resource availability comprises calculating, for each of the plurality of storage systems, a busyness factor based on utilization of at least one system resource (Col. 3 ll. 49-55: “An example server might have a capacity of 10,000 IOPS and a volume placed on that server might be configured with 1,000 IOPS. The volume thus could perform up to 1,000 IOPS such that the IOPS need to be allocated on that server for the volume. This leaves only 9,000 remaining IOPS of capacity on the server,” wherein the “busyness factor” in this case would be 10%, i.e. 1000 divided by 10000, according to the Applicant’s disclosure Paragraph [0266]. Col. 24 ll. 65-67: “the amount of capacity allocated can depend upon the current and anticipated load on the resources as well in some embodiments.”).
With regard to Claim 4, Greenwood teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the resource availability is determined for a storage system that is part of a fleet of storage systems across distinct failure domains (Col. 17 ll. 2-5: “the determination involves a periodic sweep of the relevant fleet of storage devices in order to determine available capacity, types of capacity available, and how those types are optimized.” Col. 12 ll. 48-50: “FIG. 5 illustrates another view 500 of a set of storage nodes 500 that can be utilized in accordance with various embodiments.” Col. 12 ln. 64 – Col. 13 ln. 3: “it can be desirable in at least some embodiments to move these detached data volumes, or at least one of a replicated data volume pair, to a different location in the resource provider environment. As mentioned, this can include another network locality that has available capacity and/or less demand, or to a separate storage service or facility, among other such options.”).
With regard to Claim 5, Greenwood teaches the method of claim 1, wherein presenting the allocation recommendation comprises identifying a recommended storage system for the workload based on a comparison of resource availability across the plurality of storage systems (Col. 2 ll. 4-16: “embodiments provide for the placement and movement of data volumes, and other such resource allocations, based at least in part upon the types of volumes available and an observed and/or prediction usage pattern... data volumes can be created on specific storage tiers that are selected specifically to be of adequate performance... Storage tiers can include... types of storage systems, such as... general cloud storage systems.” Col. 17 ll. 2-5: “the determination involves a periodic sweep of the relevant fleet of storage devices in order to determine available capacity, types of capacity available, and how those types are optimized.”);
With regard to Claim 6, Greenwood teaches the method of claim 1, wherein identifying the one or more workload types comprises detecting workload types based on input/output patterns associated with the one or more storage systems (Col. 14 ll. 52-62: “Various factors can be used in making such a placement decision, as may include... the type of write pattern (i.e., random or sequential), the differences between read and write patterns... for subsequent or ‘active’ placements or relocations after placement the placement manager can look to the usage data, or I/O pattern, for that particular data volume.”).
With regard to Claim 7, Greenwood teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising generating, based on the resource availability and workload types, a projection of resource utilization trends for at least one of the one or more storage systems (Col. 21 ll. 47-53: “For data volumes that have been in use for a while, information about the volume and/or patterns of I/O access can also provide information about the anticipated growth of the volume. Trends in I/O can also be utilized in addition to recent amount of I/O, in order to make more accurate predictions in cases where the rate of I/O is significantly increasing or decreasing.” Col. 23 ll. 46-49: “The usage of the data volume can be monitored 708 to attempt to detect patterns, trends, or other aspects of the usage.” Col. 25 ll. 3-8: “The usage of the data volume can be monitored 812, including monitoring of the individual partitions and/or chunks in some embodiments, to attempt to detect patterns, trends, or other aspects of the usage. Based at least in part upon this data, at least one current and/or anticipated type of workflow for the data volume usage can be determined 814.”).
With regard to Claim 8, Greenwood teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising determining, based on the allocation recommendation, a migration operation to relocate an existing workload from a first storage system to a second storage system (Col. 2 ll. 25-30: “Once a type of workload is determined with sufficient confidence, the data volume can be migrated to a different storage tier that is optimized for that type of workload. This can include, for example, going from magnetic storage to solid state storage, or going from a block storage service to a general cloud storage service, among other such options.” Col. 17 ll. 5-13: “By tracking the usage and determining any usage patterns present, the workload can be classified as a type of workload appropriate for certain types of volumes and/or certain types of hardware. At least a portion of the volume can then be migrated as appropriate, such as by re-mirroring the customer's volume onto the storage tier that is determined to be most appropriate for their volume based upon the type of workload and other such information.”).
With regard to Claim 9, Greenwood teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising initiating, based on the allocation recommendation, a configuration change for at least one storage system to support deployment of the workload (Col. 16 ll. 57-67: “In some embodiments suggestions will be made to the customer regarding tiers of storage that might be more optimal for a particular workload based on observed behavior and other such information. The customer can then determine whether or not to migrate a portion or all of the data volume... In some embodiments a customer may approve certain migrations or data types for automatic performance.” Col. 15 ln. 65 – Col. 16 ln. 8: “Once it is determined with a reasonable amount of confidence that the volume would perform better using a different storage tier, at least a portion of the volume can be migrated to that type of hardware. In some embodiments a placement module or other such system or service can asynchronously analyze a customer workload and move at least a portion of the customer's volume onto a more appropriate tier and/or provision the volume a different amount of hardware resources or one or more tiers. The module can also push new segmentation configuration data to the storage environment” Col. 23 ll. 41-46: “The data volume can then be placed 706 on the storage tier(s), along with any appropriate optimizations or other configurations discussed or suggested elsewhere herein. Once the data volume is placed and configured, the data volume can be enabled to receive and process customer I/O requests.”).
With regard to Claims 10 and 12-15, these claims are equivalent in scope to Claims 1 and 3-6 rejected above, merely having a different independent claim type, and as such Claims 10 and 12-15 are respectively rejected under the same grounds and for the same reasons as discussed above with regard to Claims 1 and 3-6.
With further regard to Claim 10, the claim recites additional elements not specifically addressed in the rejection of Claim 1. The Greenwood reference also anticipates these additional elements of Claim 10, for example, wherein the system comprises:
a memory; and a processing device, operatively coupled to the memory, the processing device configured to [perform operations] (Col. 1 ll. 60-62: “FIG. 9 illustrates components of an example computing device that can be used to perform aspects of the various embodiments.” Col. 25 ll. 34-37: “FIG. 9 illustrates a logical arrangement of a set of general components of an example computing device 900. In this example, the device includes a processor 902 for executing instructions that can be stored in a memory device or element 904.”).
With regard to Claims 16 and 18-20, these claims are equivalent in scope to Claims 1, 3, 5 and 8 rejected above, merely having a different independent claim type, and as such Claims 16 and 18-20 are respectively rejected under the same grounds and for the same reasons as discussed above with regard to Claims 1, 3, 5 and 8.
With further regard to Claim 16, the claim recites additional elements not specifically addressed in the rejection of Claim 1. The Greenwood reference also anticipates these additional elements of Claim 16, for example, Greenwood teaches:
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed, cause a processing device to [perform operations] (Col. 27 ll. 4-14: “Each server typically will include an operating system that provides executable program instructions for the general administration and operation of that server, and typically will include a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor of the server, allow the server to perform its intended functions. Suitable implementations for the operating system and general functionality of the servers are known or commercially available, and are readily implemented by persons having ordinary skill in the art, particularly in light of the disclosure herein.”).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 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 2, 11 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Greenwood as applied to Claims 1, 10 and 16 above, and further in view Miwa et al. (US PGPUB 2013/0145092).
With regard to claim 2, Greenwood teaches all the limitations of claim 1 as described above. Greenwood does not teach the user interface as described in claim 2. Miwa teaches
further comprising presenting the resource availability and the allocation recommendation via a user interface configured to display historical utilization data and projected future utilization metrics for the one or more storage systems ([0376] “graphs 3003 and 3004 denoting the actual utilization of tier 1 and tier 2 are displayed in the interface 3001.” [0377] “The graphs 3003 and 3004 are displayed on the basis of the pool usage trend measurement result table 808. For example, at the present time, unused pages exist in tier 1, but in a case where tier 1 continues to be used as-is, there is the likelihood of the unused pages running out at 12/3/23:00. The warning statement 3002 includes a message notifying the user of this fact,” see also Fig. 18 showing that the “warning” can include a recommendation and Fig. 30 showing that Graphs 3003/3004 display pool usage data regarding both “Actual use,” i.e. “historical utilization data,” and “Predicted use,” i.e. “projected future utilization metrics”.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to have modified the method as disclosed by Greenwood with the user interface as taught by Miwa since it is well-known in the art that the use of a user interface advantageously simplifies the manner in which relevant data can be presented to a user, as compared to other data output methods.
With regard to Claims 11 and 17, these claims are equivalent in scope to Claim 2 rejected above, merely having a different independent claim type, and as such Claims 11 and 17 are respectively rejected under the same grounds and for the same reasons as discussed above with regard to Claim 2.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is as follows:
Ferris et al. (US PGPUB 2012/0137002) discloses systems and methods for brokering optimized resource supply costs in a host cloud-based network using predictive workloads.
Hu et al. (“Efficient Resources Provisioning Based on Load Forecasting in Cloud,” 2014) discloses a multi-step-ahead load forecasting method, KSwSVR, based on statistical learning theory suitable for a cloud computing environment, wherein a future load is predicted based on a number of metrics.
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/NICHOLAS J SIMONETTI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2137 July 15, 2026
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