Charging Concepts

Concepts#

Some concepts are necessary to understand billing. These concepts are described in Diameter Credit Control Application: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4006 3GPP series 32 and 22 (specifically 22.100 and 22.115, 32.200) Frameworkx (www.tfmforum.org) Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org

#Advice of Charge (AoC)#

The AoC service allows a customer to know in advance the estimated price to be charged for a service. #Chargeable event#

And event that can be used for identify user, services and resources used to provide a service and use that for charging #Charged Party#

The party to be charged can be different than the user of the service. For instance, a group can have different identifiers and only the administrator be charged by it. Normally it is the same than the user.

More than one charged party can be part of the definition of a service: i.e. a company cloud and a personal AWS account used to provide the serice. #Cloud Data Record#

A record where information about subscriptions and services is stored, along with user and VAS data, that can be used for rating. #Cost Control#

The capability to limit the charges to be applied to a charged party. The charged party should have an indication of charges and some acctions should be possible if the charges are accumulated for over the limit:

• Send and indication to the user

• Stop the service

• Change the service (i.e. degrading the service for a worst but cheaper experience) #Event Based Charge#

A single element used to charge for the service. Used whtn it is sure that the service event will be successful #Fraud Control#

The process and methods used to avoid fraud #Prepaid Service#

A service that is charged before it is delivered. Normally #Quota#

Authorized amount of resources for a specific service or rating group #Quality of Service#

Level of excellence, normally calculated as a minimum availability and/or performance measured. #Rate#

The price of a thing, cost.

A price of charge calculated in a relation to a unit of time.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rate #Request#

Within the different steps of a service, it is possible that the user requests a service with some characteristics that are lately modified, either by the user itself, by a third party (i.e. administraor), or the ManageIQ environment due to resource depletion. Request defines the original request data

For example:

#Retail Charging#

A charge that is accrued directly to the end user / charged party, without intermediates. #Session#

The sequence of interactions between client and server, or between user and system; the period during which a user is logged in or connected.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/session #Session Based Charge#

A session charge that is described with more than one event (start/recurring/end).

It is used to charge for services that can be modified (i.e. A charge for 7 days on a VM that is charged by day)

On prepaid systems, it needs state maintenance on the server side, along with credit reservation. #Subscription#

A subscription describes an ongoing commercial relationship between entities. #Subsession#

A session can consist on different subsessions that are grouped together.

For example: the user asks for a service where AWS is used for peaks of traffic, charges are accrued based on a base tariff and subsessions charged independently) #User#

For our purposes, the user is the id responsible for asking the service. #Tariff#

A schedule of rates, fees or prices

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tariff #Value Added Services (VAS)#

Services added to the service provision that enhances the value of it, and do not directly.

Examples of VAS can be:

IPAM
Support services
Anti-virus
Load balancing
Fixed IP address

#Wholesale#

A charge done by a business entity to another business entity (normally retailers), as necessary to provide a service to the user.

For intance: a wholesale agreement between a service provider and the end user where other elements are charged. With the CCSP program, a CCSP can provide a VM with a Red Hat subscription service, and will need to get money from the user and pay the correspondent tariff to Red Hat.