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 § 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)(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) 1-4, 6, 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Goldstein (US 6665815 B1)
Regarding Claim 1, Goldstein teaches:
A storage system providing a volume to and from which data is input and output, the storage system comprising: a memory; (Goldstein, Col. 5, line 7-10, The full base state backup 130, the first succedent backup 131, and the second succedent backup 133 are preferably stored offline in conventional memory, such as magnetic and optical media. )
and a processor, (Goldstein, Fig. 1, 20. Examiner's note: a computer system can’t function, execute instructions without a processing unit. Therefore, a CPU/Processor is an inherent component of the computer system)
wherein the processor is configured to back up data of the volume as snapshots of a plurality of generations, (Goldstein, abstract, A backup apparatus and method suitable for protecting the data volume in a computer system function by acquiring a base state snapshot and a sequential series of data volume snapshots)
and back up the snapshots as difference data, which is a difference from snapshots of other generations, (Goldstein, abstract, the apparatus concurrently generating succedent and precedent lists of snapshot differences which are used to create succedent and precedent backups respectively. )
and when a restore instruction of the data is received, the processor restores a snapshot of one generation, (Goldstein, Col. 5, line 50-52,To recover the data volume in the present example, the backups are restored in successive order. The full base state backup 130 (B.sub.0) is obtained...)
applies difference data from the snapshot to the restored snapshot to restore a snapshot of another generation, (Goldstein, Col. 5, line 50-55, Fig. 5-6, To recover the data volume in the present example, the backups are restored in successive order. The full base state backup 130 (B.sub.0) is obtained and subsequently overwritten with the first succedent backup 131 and then with the second succedent backup 133. This yields an exact copy of the volume as of its second state snapshot 115. )
and repeats restoring a snapshot of another generation by applying another difference data to a snapshot restored by applying the difference data, (Goldstein, Col. 5, line 50-55, Fig. 5-6, To recover the data volume in the present example, the backups are restored in successive order. The full base state backup 130 (B.sub.0) is obtained and subsequently overwritten with the first succedent backup 131 and then with the second succedent backup 133. This yields an exact copy of the volume as of its second state snapshot 115. )
and restores snapshots of a plurality of generations. (Goldstein, Col. 6, line 18-31, Fig. 7, A first precedent snapshot difference list 143 (S.sub.21) in state snapshots (i.e., S.sub.2.fwdarw.S.sub.1) is generated. All segments of the first state snapshot 113 that are different from the second state snapshot 115 are listed. A first precedent backup 153 (B.sub.21) is made by copying from the first state snapshot 113 all the data blocks identified in the first precedent snapshot difference list 143 and by copying the first precedent snapshot difference list 143. Once the copying steps have been performed, the first state snapshot 113 can be deleted (not shown). The precedent physical incremental backup process is continued to obtain a second precedent snapshot difference list 145 (S.sub.32) and a second precedent backup 155 (B.sub.32), and a third precedent snapshot difference list 147 (S.sub.43) and a third precedent backup 157 (B.sub.43) in a similar manner.)
Regarding Claim 2, Goldstein teaches:
The storage system according to claim 1, wherein the processor restores a snapshot corresponding to a second generation to data of a first generation to reproduce data of the second generation different from the data of the first generation reproduced for the volume by restoring the snapshots of the plurality of generations. (Goldstein, Col. 6, line 18-31, Fig. 7, A first precedent snapshot difference list 143 (S.sub.21) in state snapshots (i.e., S.sub.2.fwdarw.S.sub.1) is generated. All segments of the first state snapshot 113 that are different from the second state snapshot 115 are listed. A first precedent backup 153 (B.sub.21) is made by copying from the first state snapshot 113 all the data blocks identified in the first precedent snapshot difference list 143 and by copying the first precedent snapshot difference list 143. Once the copying steps have been performed, the first state snapshot 113 can be deleted (not shown). The precedent physical incremental backup process is continued to obtain a second precedent snapshot difference list 145 (S.sub.32) and a second precedent backup 155 (B.sub.32), and a third precedent snapshot difference list 147 (S.sub.43) and a third precedent backup 157 (B.sub.43) in a similar manner. Examiner's note: so if first generation is 113 and a second target generation is 119, then snapshots 115 and 117 will have to be restores inbetween, using the difference list 143, 145, and 147)
Regarding Claim 3, Goldstein teaches:
The storage system according to claim 1, wherein after reproducing the data of the volume using full backup data of the volume, (Goldstein, Col. 4, line 11-13, In FIG. 4, a full base state backup 130 (B.sub.0) is made of the base state snapshot 111 by copying the entire contents of the base state snapshot 111.)
the processor reproduces data of a restore target generation for the volume and backs up the snapshots of the plurality of generations by backing up the snapshot of the generation when overwriting the reproduced data of the volume with the data of the generation using differential backup data with other generations for each generation in order of the generation of the volume. (Goldstein, Col. 4, line 13-18, A first succedent snapshot difference list 121 (S.sub.01) in data volume state snapshots is then obtained. A `snapshot difference list` (e.g., S.sub.0.fwdarw.S.sub.1) is a list of identifiers of those data blocks in the first state snapshot 113 (S.sub.1) that differ from the data blocks in the base state snapshot 111 (S.sub.0). Line 27-40, This difference list is then used to list the data blocks that are copied from the snapshot itself to the backup. The first succedent snapshot difference list 121 is generated by identifying those data blocks of the first state snapshot 113 that differ from the data blocks of the base state snapshot 111. These segments can be identified by examining the snapshot mapping data. The first succedent snapshot difference list 121 thus includes identifiers of all the data blocks of the first state snapshot 113 differing from data blocks in the base snapshot 111. A first succedent backup 131 (B.sub.01) is created by copying from the first state snapshot 113 (S.sub.1) all the data blocks identified in the first succedent snapshot difference list 121. A copy of the snapshot difference list 121 is also included in the first succedent backup 131.)
Regarding Claim 4, Goldstein teaches:
The storage system according to claim 3, wherein the processor acquires the full backup data and the differential backup data from a backup source device. (Goldstein, Col. 5, line 7-10, The full base state backup 130, the first succedent backup 131, and the second succedent backup 133 are preferably stored offline in conventional memory, such as magnetic and optical media. Col. 3, line 36-42, The snapshots 57 are compared by a processing unit 53, as explained in greater detail below, to produce a list of blocks that have changed between the snapshots 57 so that those blocks may be copied into backups 59. In a preferred embodiment, backup processing means 50 also includes a sending unit 55 for storing the backups 59 in the offline storage 40.)
Regarding Claim 6, Goldstein teaches:
The storage system according to claim 4, wherein the processor determines the other generation from generations of the backed up data. (Goldstein, Col. 5, line 50-60, To recover the data volume in the present example, the backups are restored in successive order. The full base state backup 130 (B.sub.0) is obtained and subsequently overwritten with the first succedent backup 131 and then with the second succedent backup 133. This yields an exact copy of the volume as of its second state snapshot 115. Alternately, if the full base state backup 130 (B.sub.0) and the subsequent incrementals B.sub.01 and B.sub.12 had been previously consolidated into a single backup, a simple restoring procedure would also restore the volume to its state at second state snapshot 115 (S.sub.2).)
Regarding Claim 11,
The storage control method of claim 11 performs the same method steps as the method of claim 1, and claim 11 is therefore rejected using the same rationale set forth above in the rejection of claim 1
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.
Claim(s) 7, 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goldstein (US 6665815 B1), in view of SINGH (US 20200311025 A1).
Regarding Claim 7, Goldstein does not explicitly teach:
The storage system according to claim 1, wherein the processor performs damage presence or absence determination as to whether a damage is detected as a scan result including checking whether data is damaged for at least one of the snapshots of the plurality of generations.
However, SINGH teaches:
The storage system according to claim 1, wherein the processor performs damage presence or absence determination as to whether a damage is detected as a scan result including checking whether data is damaged for at least one of the snapshots of the plurality of generations. (SINGH, [0007] The present disclosure describes techniques used in systems, methods, and in computer program products for verifying replicated snapshot integrity. More specifically, the present disclosure describes techniques used in systems, methods, and in computer program products for verifying the integrity of replicated snapshots in distributed computing environments.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Goldstein with snapshot integrity verification as taught by SINGH, because a replicated snapshot might get corrupted due to a hardware problem (e.g., a bad block on a storage device), or might get corrupted due to a malware (e.g., ransomware) attack, or might get corrupted when executing certain data management operations (e.g., compression operations, deduplication operations, etc.). Such corrupted replicated snapshots should not be used to perform any of the foregoing disaster recovery (DR) operations (e.g., restore, failover, etc.) since they not only will fail to provide the desired DR outcome, but may also (e.g., if corrupted by malware) cause other undesired behaviors. (SINGH, [0005])
Regarding Claim 10, Goldstein in view of SINGH teaches:
The storage system according to claim 1, wherein the volume is a volume corresponding to a target virtual server (SINGH, [0031] For example, certain virtual machines (VMs) implemented at the nodes might access virtual disks (vDisks) that comprise data that is physically distributed over the storage devices in storage pool 106.sub.1. ) among a plurality of virtual servers in a plurality of storage areas (SINGH, Fig. 1, 106.sub.1, 106.sub.2) corresponding to the plurality of virtual servers (SINGH, Fig. 1, 102.sub.1, 102.sub.2) and managed by a virtualization platform. (SINGH, [0009] Aspects of the present disclosure achieve performance and other improvements in peripheral technical fields including (but not limited to) hyperconverged computing platform management and virtualized computing systems.)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 5, 8, 9 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.
Kang (US 11656950 B2): Teaches creation of destination snapshot based on difference data between source object and snapshot. (Abstract)
Bushman (US 8832027 B1): Teaches tracking changes to source storage between snapshots of source storage, in order to create incremental image backup of source storage. (Summary) Data can be restored to the state at the point in time of a particular backup by applying incremental backup from oldest to newest. (Col. 5, line 54-60)
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to XINYUAN YU whose telephone number is (571)272-7140. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:30-5:30.
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/XINYUAN YU/Examiner, Art Unit 2113 /BRYCE P BONZO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2113
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