Open APIs

Dear colleagues,
we are trying to implement TMF-677 (Usage consumption API). While reading API Specification Release 17.5.0 someone can find a very nice class diagram on page 9, describing links between Product, Bucket, Balance and ConsumptionCounter.

1. Could you please clarify why one bucket may have several balances and consumption counters?
From my experience bucket has strictly one balance and may have one consumption counter.
For example, a client may have a bucket of 5 Gigs or 100 SMS.  Several balances for this bucket look strange

May the balance/consumption counter counts only even/odd/special SMS?:)

2. Would balance and consumption counter are related anyway - there should be some link between them.
Because it is very clear from examples that bucketBalance[i]+bucketCounter[i]= bucketQouta.
Is it assumed that bucketBalance [1] corresponds to bucketCounter[1] and so on? Haven't read this in specification

3. And the main question: what is the difference between bucketBalance and bucketCounter?
From specifications i concluded that there is only one: bucketBalance is the amount left and bucketCounter is the amount used.

But we have the "counterType" attribute in bucketCounter and can represent balance as :

"bucketCounter" : [
   {
//  in the specification only "used" has been given
     "counterType":"left"
  ...
}

Is it possible to substitute backetBalance with this bucketCounter?

4. Sometimes i have a very funny thing: the system can't tell the counter type:) - implementation issues.
May i use "counterType"="unknown"?

Thanks in advance,

Hello,

1. A bucket has strictly one balance but this balance can be given in different units (for the given sample, we can give the balance of the bucket in Gigs but also in the corresponding amount of money). This is the reason why we have this cardilatity.

For the consumption counters, in general, we can have only one counter for the used value in the bucket. But, for shared bucket, we can give have several counters : one global for the all the consumptoon done in the bucket, a counter detailing the consumption by device,...

2. The link between the balance and the counters is done via the bucket resource. In the consumption follow up report, they are displayed  together for each bucket.

3. BucketBalance gives the amount left in the bucket (at the time of report calculation) and BucketCounter gives what have been used in the bucket. It is not a good idea to use the counterType to give the balance in the counters even if it is possible ! You have two distinct sub-resources : one for the balance and on for the counters and you have to use it.

4. You can adapt the use of counterType to your particular needs.

I specify a new version of the TMF677 Usage Consumption API for the next release 18.5 (coming very soon).

Best regards​

Dear colleagues,
we are trying to implement TMF-677 (Usage consumption API). While reading API Specification Release 17.5.0 someone can find a very nice class diagram on page 9, describing links between Product, Bucket, Balance and ConsumptionCounter.

1. Could you please clarify why one bucket may have several balances and consumption counters?
From my experience bucket has strictly one balance and may have one consumption counter.
For example, a client may have a bucket of 5 Gigs or 100 SMS.  Several balances for this bucket look strange

May the balance/consumption counter counts only even/odd/special SMS?:)

2. Would balance and consumption counter are related anyway - there should be some link between them.
Because it is very clear from examples that bucketBalance[i]+bucketCounter[i]= bucketQouta.
Is it assumed that bucketBalance [1] corresponds to bucketCounter[1] and so on? Haven't read this in specification

3. And the main question: what is the difference between bucketBalance and bucketCounter?
From specifications i concluded that there is only one: bucketBalance is the amount left and bucketCounter is the amount used.

But we have the "counterType" attribute in bucketCounter and can represent balance as :

"bucketCounter" : [
   {
//  in the specification only "used" has been given
     "counterType":"left"
  ...
}

Is it possible to substitute backetBalance with this bucketCounter?

4. Sometimes i have a very funny thing: the system can't tell the counter type:) - implementation issues.
May i use "counterType"="unknown"?

Thanks in advance,

Dear colleagues,
we are trying to implement TMF-677 (Usage consumption API). While reading API Specification Release 17.5.0 someone can find a very nice class diagram on page 9, describing links between Product, Bucket, Balance and ConsumptionCounter.

1. Could you please clarify why one bucket may have several balances and consumption counters?
From my experience bucket has strictly one balance and may have one consumption counter.
For example, a client may have a bucket of 5 Gigs or 100 SMS.  Several balances for this bucket look strange

May the balance/consumption counter counts only even/odd/special SMS?:)

2. Would balance and consumption counter are related anyway - there should be some link between them.
Because it is very clear from examples that bucketBalance[i]+bucketCounter[i]= bucketQouta.
Is it assumed that bucketBalance [1] corresponds to bucketCounter[1] and so on? Haven't read this in specification

3. And the main question: what is the difference between bucketBalance and bucketCounter?
From specifications i concluded that there is only one: bucketBalance is the amount left and bucketCounter is the amount used.

But we have the "counterType" attribute in bucketCounter and can represent balance as :

"bucketCounter" : [
   {
//  in the specification only "used" has been given
     "counterType":"left"
  ...
}

Is it possible to substitute backetBalance with this bucketCounter?

4. Sometimes i have a very funny thing: the system can't tell the counter type:) - implementation issues.
May i use "counterType"="unknown"?

Thanks in advance,