Patent Application 18225027 - AUTOMATED DEBUGGING OF KUBERNETES APPLICATION

Title: AUTOMATED DEBUGGING OF KUBERNETES APPLICATION

Application Information

Invention Title: AUTOMATED DEBUGGING OF KUBERNETES APPLICATION
Application Number: 18225027
Submission Date: 2025-04-07T00:00:00.000Z
Effective Filing Date: 2023-07-21T00:00:00.000Z
Filing Date: 2023-07-21T00:00:00.000Z
National Class: 717
National Sub-Class: 124000
Examiner Employee Number: 88146
Art Unit: 2151
Tech Center: 2100

Rejection Summary

102 Rejections: 0
103 Rejections: 2

Cited Patents

The following patents were cited in the rejection:

US 0315560🔗
US 0019519🔗

Office Action Text

DETAILED ACTION
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. This communication is in response to the communication filed on 07/21/2023.
3. Claims filed 07/21/2023 have been acknowledged. Claims 1-22 are pending in the application.

Information Disclosure Statement
4. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/18/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.

Claim Rejections – 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
6. 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 of this title, 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.

7. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.

8. Claims 1-2, 5-7, 13-14, 16-18 are rejected under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA , 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Caldato et al. (Patent No. US 10,838,788 B2; hereinafter referred to as Caldato), in view of Hughes et al. (Pub. No. US 2023/0315560 A1; hereinafter referred to as Hughes).

As per claim 1, Caldato discloses a method for monitoring a first service that executes in a Pod on a node of a Kubernetes deployment (See abstract, also column 8, line 2 – services/Kubernetes), the method comprising:
at a second service executing on the node (See column 2, lines 5-20): (iii) instantiating a new container on the node to analyze the generated image in order to debug the first service (See column 2, line16 – instantiating new container for debugging).
However, Caldato does not explicitly states - monitoring a storage of the node that stores core dump files to detect when a core dump file pertaining to the first service is written to the storage; upon detection of the core dump file being written to the storage, automatically (i) generating an image of the first service based on data in the core dump file.
Hughes discloses - monitoring a storage of the node that stores core dump files to detect when a core dump file pertaining to the first service is written to the storage (See p. [0080-0084] – monitoring and storing dump files);
upon detection of the core dump file being written to the storage, automatically (i) generating an image of the first service based on data in the core dump file (See p. [0020, creates image, collects and pushes dump file).
Caldato and Hughes are directed to software program development, which are analogous prior art.
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention (first inventor to file provisions of the AIA ) to incorporate and combine Caldato’s method for providing runtime debugging for containerized services in container environments; and further combine it with Hughes’ storing container environment information based on Kubernetes environment’s dump file; thus, facilitating the provision of abnormal environment information, fault diagnosis, and efficient real-time debugging process, in which services are not interrupted when determining an abnormality in a container environment (See Caldato’s and Hughes’ abstracts and backgrounds).

As per claim 2, Caldato and Hughes disclose the method of claim 1 (See claim 1 rejection above, under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA , 35 USC § 103), wherein the first service is a datapath that performs logical forwarding operations for a plurality of logical routers of a logical network (See Caldato’s Fig. 22, and column 24, line 23 – routing among service instances).

As per claim 5, Caldato and Hughes disclose the method of claim 1 (See claim 1 rejection above, under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA , 35 USC § 103), wherein the core dump file is generated when the first service crashes (See Hughes’ abstract – crash).

As per claim 6, Caldato and Hughes disclose the method of claim 1 (See claim 1 rejection above, under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA , 35 USC § 103), wherein the storage is a persistent volume storage of the node that is shared between the Pod, the second service, and the new container (See Caldato’s Fig. 23).

As per claim 7, Caldato and Hughes disclose the method of claim 1 (See claim 1 rejection above, under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA , 35 USC § 103), wherein the second service generates the image of the first service based on at least one of (i) a naming string of the core dump file and (ii) version information stored at the node (See Caldato’s column 3, line 9 – debug build of service).

Claims 13-14, 16-18 are essentially the same as claims 1-2, 5-7 except that they are set forth the claimed invention as a non-transitory machine-readable medium, and they are rejected with the same reasoning as applied hereinabove.

9. Claims 3-4, 15 are rejected under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA , 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Caldato et al. (Patent No. US 10,838,788 B2; hereinafter referred to as Caldato), in view of Hughes et al. (Pub. No. US 2023/0315560 A1; hereinafter referred to as Hughes), and in further view of Gann et al. (Pub. No. US 2022/0019519 A1; hereinafter referred to as Gann).

As per claim 3, Caldato and Hughes disclose the method of claim 2 (See claim 2 rejection above, under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA , 35 USC § 103), wherein a plurality of additional Pods execute on a plurality of nodes of the Kubernetes deployment (See Caldato’s Fig. 22), including the node on which the Pod executes (See Caldato’s Fig. 22).
Although Caldato and Hughes provide an orchestration and container environment in which capabilities for specific gateway at the application layer; neither Caldato nor Hughes explicitly state - perform layer 7 (L7) services for the plurality of logical routers.
Gann discloses - perform layer 7 (L7) services for the plurality of logical routers (See p. [0004] – dynamic configuration such as layer-2 to layer-7).
Caldato, Hughes and Gann are directed to software program development, which are analogous prior art.
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention (first inventor to file provisions of the AIA ) to incorporate and combine Caldato’s method for providing runtime debugging for containerized services in container environments; and combine it with Hughes’ storing container environment information based on Kubernetes environment’s dump file; and further combine it with Gann’s testing in a virtualized computing environment; thus, facilitating the provision of abnormal environment information, fault diagnosis, and efficient real-time debugging process, in which services are not interrupted when determining an abnormality in a container environment, while enabling dynamic configurations of the cluster network (See Caldato’s, Hughes’ and Gann’s abstracts and backgrounds).

As per claim 4, Caldato, Hughes and Gann disclose the method of claim 3 (See claim 3 rejection above, under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA , 35 USC § 103), wherein each of the additional Pods performs one or more L7 services for a single logical router (See Gann’s p. [0024, 0045]).

Claim 15 is essentially the same as claims 3-4 except that it is set forth the claimed invention as a non-transitory machine-readable medium, and it is rejected with the same reasoning as applied hereinabove.

10. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
MA, Yu-xin – CN 115454573 A; which teaches: Container Environment Information Storing Method Based On K8S, Device, Device, Storage Medium.
JIA, Yong-peng – CN 111026502 A; which teaches: A Service Debugging Architecture Creating Method, Device And Electronic Device And Storage Medium.

Allowable Subject Matter
11. Claims 8-9 ,11-12, 19-22 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 prior art of record fails to disclose the limitations: wherein generating the image of the first service comprises: identifying all software packages executing for the first service; generating a document comprising a set of commands for building an image based on the identified software packages; and building the image using the generated document… wherein the new container is instantiated with a set of automated scripts that analyze the core dump file and bundles the analysis for root cause analysis” as specified by the claims.

12. Please see M.P.E.P. 2111 Claim Interpretation; Broadest Reasonable Interpretation [R-9]; 2111.01 Plain Meaning [R-9]: III. “Plain Meaning” Refers to the ordinary and customary meaning given to the term by those of ordinary skill in the art”
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. Claims must be given the broadest reasonable interpretation during examination, and limitations appearing in the specification but not recited in the claim are not read into the claims (See M.P.E.P. 2111 [R-I]).

Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FRANCISCO JAVIER APONTE whose telephone number is (571)270-7164. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 8-4.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, James Trujillo can be reached on (571)272-3677. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/FRANCISCO J APONTE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2151 04/02/2025.