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  • 1.  TMF635 Usage Management

    Posted Dec 02, 2020 00:06
    I noticed that there was a recent release of the TMF635 Usage Management Spec. The previous version was some 6 years old so we were anticipating the new release. I think the spec has a significant flaw in it but please correct me if I am wrong. As it stands in the spec, a "usage" has no relationship with the service or the resource that generated that usage. Without such a relationship it is not possible to track what service generated the usage account for what or who is responsible for that usage and hence there is no way to trace back to the product that should be used to charge for that usage. In my mind the realising service associated with a product would be the responsible service and through the service association with the product it would be possible to derive with product price to be used to generate the "rated usage".

    Could you please correct me if I am wrong and direct me to where I can better understand the concepts/relationships it currently tries to convey?

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    Stuart Batten
    Telstra Corporation
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  • 2.  RE: TMF635 Usage Management

    Posted Dec 02, 2020 00:41
    Hi Stuart
    The released Usage model includes a set of contained RatedProductUsage elements, each such element has a ProductRef that points to the product generating the usage. From the Product you could then get to the ProductPrice.
    The connection is indeed at the level of Product, not service or resource, the assumption being (I guess) that the guiding and rating has been done in the background, not via the API.
    In other words, the raw processing of usage (via CDRs/EDRs or real time DIAMETER protocol etc.) is not within the domain of this API.
    Hope it helps

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    Jonathan Goldberg
    Amdocs Management Limited
    Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.
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  • 3.  RE: TMF635 Usage Management

    Posted Dec 02, 2020 00:52
    Thanks Jonathan - but all usage must be attributable to either a service or resource. This is fundamental to any sort or audit tracking on usage. (imagine if a customer made a bill enquiry - what is this charge related to?) A separate data store to maintain this relationship outside of the TMF and its data store doesn't make sense and destroys the data referential integrity and it is impossible to derive how to charge. I would have thought the TMF Open API has no option but to consider these associations or usage cannot be managed properly

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    Stuart Batten
    Telstra Corporation
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: TMF635 Usage Management

    Posted Dec 02, 2020 01:08
    Hi Stuart

    Thanks for your comment

    The Open API model is not intended to represent a complete internal data store picture, it is what it is, i.e. a model of the payload for API. The scope of the Usage API is (at least currently) to show and manage rated product usage.

    Perhaps you are familiar with the Information Framework (the SID)? In the SID, the elementary usages ascribed to service and resource are modeled explicitly, together with their relationships to the product usage.

    You might want to take this up with @Stephen Harrop of Vodafone, the lead for the Usage API, to see if there is a case for expanding into service and resource.​

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    Jonathan Goldberg
    Amdocs Management Limited
    Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


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