Overview

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This example describes how a service provider might configure SL1 to create bandwidth billing reports for a customer.

To create a bandwidth billing report in SL1, you must perform the following tasks:

  1. Define product SKUs for each type of bandwidth billing structure used by your organization, or use existing product SKUs.
  2. Configure the network interfaces that will be used in the bandwidth billing policies. To use an interface in a bandwidth billing policy, SL1 must be configured to collect bandwidth statistics for the interface every five minutes.
  3. Define one or more bandwidth billing policies.
  4. Generate the Interface Billing report that includes the bandwidth billing policies that you created. You can optionally configure SL1 to generate the report on a set schedule.

This section includes the following topics:

Creating a Product SKU

To define a bandwidth billing policy, you must first define product SKUs for each type of bandwidth product, or use existing product SKUs in SL1.

Product SKUs can be associated with organizations, devices, assets, or interfaces. Product SKUs allow you to track and bill customers for products and services rendered, such as bandwidth billing. Product SKU's can be viewed, edited, and created in the Product Catalog page (Registry > Service Provider Utilities > Product Catalog). When you associate a product with an organization, device, asset, or interface, that product/element pair appears in the Product Subscription Manager page (Registry > Service Provider Utilities > Product Subscriptions).

This section describes how to create a Product SKU that a service provider is most likely to use.

To create the example Product SKU:

  1. Go to the Product Catalog page (Registry > Service Provider Utilities > Product Catalog).
  2. Click the [Create] button and the Edit Product modal page appears.
  3. In this example, the customer is billed based on the 95th percentile value of inbound and outbound bandwidth. To configure the example Product SKU, supply values in the following fields:
  • Product Name. Enter a name for the Product SKU. For this example, the product SKU is named Accumulative 95th Percentile Mega = 1000000.
  • SKU Identifier. Enter a short identifier for the Product SKU. For this example, the identifier is BW-A95P-1000.
  • Product Class. Select the type of service this Product SKU represents. You can add a new product class by clicking the red plus icon. The example SKU is for dedicated Internet access; select Dedicated Internet Access Service from the drop-down list.
  • Addendum/Description. Optionally enter description of the product SKU.
  • For Entity Type. To use a Product SKU with a bandwidth billing policy, you must select Interface from this drop-down list. After selecting Interface, the fields Interface Service Type and Interface Percentile Rate will appear.
  • Interface Service Type. The example the policy will bill the customer based on inbound and outbound bandwidth in Megabits, with Megabits defined as 1000000 bits. Select Mega = 1000000: Percentile: In & Out in this drop-down list.
  • Interface Percentile Rate. The value you select in this field determines the single bandwidth usage reading that will be used to calculate the cost to the customer. Most services bill customers based on the bandwidth usage reading at the 95th percentile. For this example, select 95%. If your organization uses a different bandwidth usage reading to calculate cost, you can select from 50% to 100% or Disabled.

  1. Click the [Save] button to save the Product SKU, which can now be used in a bandwidth billing policy.

Configuring Network Interfaces

By default, SL1 collects usage data from network interfaces every 15 minutes. However, bandwidth billing in SL1 requires a shorter polling interval of 5 minutes. Collection intervals can be adjusted on one or more interfaces in the Network Interfaces page (Registry > Networks > Interfaces).

To change the collection interval for multiple interfaces:

  1. Go to the Network Interfaces page (Registry > Networks > Interfaces).
  2. Select the checkbox for each interface for which you want to change the collection interval. You can use the fields at the top of each column to filter the list of interfaces. For this example, the list of interfaces is filtered to include only interfaces on a device called "Aphrodite".
  3. In the Select Action drop-down list at the bottom-right of the page, select Every 5 Min.in the Collection Frequency section.

    4. After you create a bandwidth billing policy, SL1 will not prevent a user from changing the Collection Frequency setting for the associated interfaces. If the collection frequency of an interface that is already included in a bandwidth billing policy is changed, SL1 will calculate incorrect bandwidth billing data.

  4. Click the [Go] button.

When you create a Bandwidth Billing policy, the Available Interfaces field will display a list of all interfaces with a collection frequency of 5 minutes.

NOTE: The Interface Billing report supports multi-tenancy. For users of type "user", this means that the Interface Billing report will only display interfaces that are included in the bandwidth billing policies that the user is allowed to view, and interfaces that are aligned with the same organization as the user or has an Emissary setting that allows the user to view the interface.

Creating a Bandwidth Billing Policy

For this example, the service provider guarantees each customer a specified throughput speed and bills each customer based on incoming and outgoing bandwidth usage. A bandwidth billing policy specifies the product SKU to use for billing, the interfaces used by the customer, and the cost for using the bandwidth. In this example, the bandwidth billing policy includes two interfaces. For each bandwidth billing policy, SL1 creates a virtual interface. A virtual interface is used to record the combined bandwidth usage for all the interfaces included in the associated bandwidth billing policy.

To create a bandwidth billing policy, perform the following steps:

  1. Go to the Bandwidth Billing Policies page (Registry > Service Provider Utilities > Bandwidth Billing).
  2. Click the [Create] button. The Bandwidth Billing Editor page is displayed.
  3. Supply values in the following fields:
  • Organization: Select the organization associated with the customer to be billed. Users of type "administrator" can select from a list of all organizations in SL1. Users of type "user" can select from a list of all organizations of which they are a member.
  • Policy Name: Enter a name for the policy, for example, "Acme Widgets: Bandwidth Usage".
  • Product SKU: Select a Product SKU to associate with the bandwidth billing policy. To use the example Product SKU described in the Creating a Product SKU section, selectBW-A95P-1000: Accumulative 95th Percentile Mega = 1000000. The customer will be billed based on inbound and outbound bandwidth for all applicable interfaces. Billing is calculated using the percentile point specified in the Interface Percentile Rate field, which in this case is the 95th percentile. A Megabyte will be measured as 1000000 (one million) bytes.
  • Filter Interface: You can use this field to search for interfaces by device name, organization, interface name, interface alias, or interface description.
  • Available Interfaces: Select which interfaces to align with the bandwidth billing policy. You can select one or more interfaces. This example includes two interfaces: 2612 BR0/0 BRI0/0, and Aphrodite **********Peoria Chiefs********** Serial 1/2.

In this example, the two selected interfaces are located on separate routers. The first interface, 2612 BR0/0 BRI0/0, is active, while the second interface, Aphrodite **********Peoria Chiefs********** Serial 1/2, acts as a failover interface and typically remains dormant. The second interface is used only if the first interface should fail. By including both interfaces in the bandwidth billing policy, no additional steps need to be taken during the billing process to account for failover. When the policy is saved, SL1 creates a virtual interface, which acts as a container for the customer's bandwidth usage information.

  • Bill On: Select a specific day of the month on which the customer will be billed . For this example, select 1st Day to bill the customer on the first day of each month.
  • Base Commitment: Amount of base bandwidth/transfer specified in the customer's contract. For example, enter "1.5". In this example, the unit of measurement specified in the Product SKU is Megabits per second, so "1.5" represents, for 1.5 Megabits per second.
  • Base Rate Per Unit: Enter the cost per unit for bandwidth specified in the Base Commitment field. This figure is always based on a unit of 1. For example, enter "100", which represents $100 per Megabit.
  • Overage Rate Per Unit: Enter the cost per unit when the customer exceeds the bandwidth specified in the Base Commitment field. For example, enter "130", which represents $130 per Megabit overage.

  1. Click the [Save] button to save the policy.

The Bandwidth Billing policy appears in the Bandwidth Billing Policies page (Registry > Service Provider Utilities > Bandwidth Billing). To view the bandwidth usage data associated with the virtual interface for the bandwidth billing policy (the combined bandwidth usage of all interfaces associated with the policy), click the graph icon () for the bandwidth billing policy. When you click the graph icon, the Billing Report page is displayed:

Viewing the Bandwidth Billing Report

To generate a Bandwidth Billing Report for Acme Widgets: Bandwidth Usage:

  1. Go to the Reports page (Reports > Reports).
  2. In the Run Quick Report field, select Interface Billing, version 1.2.
  3. In the Policy Selection pane, de-select the All Policies checkbox, and then select "System" from the Organizations list.
  4. Also in the Policy Selection pane, select the Select Individual Policies checkbox, and then select the Acme Widgets: Bandwidth Usage policy.
  5. In the Report Span pane, select Monthly, and leave the Starting and Duration fields as This month and 1 month, respectively.

  1. In the Output format field, select Web page (.html).

  1. Click the [Generate] button. The report will open in a new tab in the browser.

Bandwidth Billing Calculations

The report includes the following three dollar amounts for each selected bandwidth billing policy:

  • Base Amount ($)
  • Overage Amount ($)
  • Total Bill ($)

To calculate these values, the report used the data collected for the virtual interface associated with the bandwidth billing policy, and the values from the following fields in the product SKU and bandwidth billing policy:

  • Bill On (from billing policy). This value is used to adjust the time period for the policy data.

  • Base Commitment (from billing policy). After the bandwidth usage for the time period is calculated, this value is used to calculate the Base Amount ($) value.
  • Base Rate Per Unit (from billing policy). After the bandwidth usage for the time period amount is calculated, this value is used to calculate the Base Amount ($) value.
  • Overage Rate Per Unit (from billing policy). After the bandwidth usage for the time period amount is calculated, this value is used to calculate the Overage Amount ($) value.
  • Interface Service Type (from SKU). This value is used to calculate the total amount of bandwidth the customer is billed for.
  • Interface Percentile Rate (from SKU). This value is used to calculate the total amount of bandwidth the customer is billed for.

To calculate the billing amounts, the following calculations are performed when the report is generated:

  1. The report calculates the time period for each policy:
  • If a report span of one month was selected in the report input form, the time span is adjusted based on the Bill On value defined in the billing policy. If the Bill On value is between 2 and 28, the report adjusts the start and end times forward so that the time span starts on the correct day. For example, if on the report input form, you select Last Month as the time span and a billing policy has a Bill On value of 3, the time span used by the report for that policy will start at the beginning of the 3rd day of last month and end at the end of the 2nd day of the current month. The time span for a policy is not adjusted if the bill on value is less than 2 or greater than 28.

  • If the time span for a billing policy is not adjusted , the time period used by the report is the time span that you specified in the input form.

  1. The report calculates the total amount of bandwidth the customer is billed for. For Interface Service Types of "Committed Transfer", this amount is the total amount of inbound and outbound bandwidth used for the entire billing period, i.e. the sum of all collected inbound and outbound values. For the other Interface Service Types, the calculation of this value is based on the collected data for a single poll. First, the report calculates a value for each poll during the time span. The value is different for each Interface Service Type:
  • Percentile In & Out: The value for each poll is the combined inbound & outbound utilization, measured in the units specified in the SKU.

  • Percentile Inbound: The value for each poll is the inbound utilization, measured in the units specified in the SKU.
  • Percentile Outbound: The value for each poll is the outbound utilization, measured in the units specified in the SKU.
  • Percentile: Highest Poll: The value for each poll is either the inbound utilization or the outbound utilization, whichever is higher, measured in the units specified in the SKU.
  1. For Interface Service Types other than "Committed Transfer", the report orders the data for each poll from the lowest value to the highest value. The value at the percentile specified in the Interface Percentile Rate specified in the SKU is selected. For example, if there were 100 polls during the time period specified in the report, the values would be ordered with the lowest value at position 1 and the highest value at position 100. If the Interface Percentile Rate specified in the SKU is 95%, the report would select the value at position 95.

    2. When the percentile option is selected, the Billing Report performance graph displays a calculated value at each percentile point. The Interface Billing report uses the actual reading that is closest to the 95th percentile to calculate billing values.

  2. The report now uses either the total amount of inbound and outbound bandwidth used (for "Committed Transfer" Interface Service Types) or the single selected value (for other Interface Service Types) as the calculated bandwidth usage. The calculated bandwidth usage is used to calculate three dollar amounts:
  • Base Amount ($) = Base Commitment defined in billing policy * Base Rate defined in billing policy
  • Overage Amount ($). If the calculated bandwidth usage is less than the base commitment, this value is 0. If the calculated bandwidth usage is greater than the base commitment, this value equals: (calculated bandwidth usage – base commitment) * overage rate defined in policy
  • Total Bill ($) = Base Amount + Overage Amount

Scheduling a Bandwidth Billing Report

To schedule a report in SL1, you must:

  • Create a report job, which stores the options and parameters of the report.
  • Add the report job to the schedule.

This section describes both of these tasks.

Creating a Report Job

You can define a report job in the Report Jobs page (Reports > Create Report > Report Jobs). From this page, you can create a report job, run a report job, edit a report job, or delete a report job. To create a report job:

  • Go to the Report Jobs page (Reports > Create Report > Report Jobs).
  • Click the Create button in the upper right of the page. The Report Job Editor page appears.
  • The Report Job Editor page contains fields where you can select the parameters of the report job. The fields are:
  • Job Title. Provide a title for the report job. For this example, enter Billing Report for Sales.
  • Run as User. Specify a user that the report will run for. When the report is generated this user's organization restrictions will be used. This is helpful when a system administrator is setting up a scheduled report for a user who does not have access to the Report Scheduler and who may have access only to the entities in his/her organization. Therefore, it is best practice to select the user account for the customer you are generating the report for. For more information on organization restrictions, see the section on Access Permissions.
  • Report Definition. Select a custom report to run. The drop-down list will display all custom reports in the system. For this example, select Interface Billing, version 1.2.
  • Job Recipients. Select the users, external contacts, and vendors to send the report to. For this example, select a user account or external contact associated with the customer's organization. To add job recipients to the report job:
    • Select the Job recipients field. The Recipient Selector modal page appears. In the Matched Recipients list, select the checkbox in the Action column for the user you want to send the report to.
    • Click the Add/Remove button in the bottom right of the page to add the selected user(s).
  • Job Type. How SL1 will deliver the report. For this example, select Email & Archive (Deliver to EM7 Inbox). When the scheduled report is generated, SL1 will send it to the Inbox of all users you selected in the Job Recipients field; send the report to the email address for all users, external contacts, and vendors you selected in the Job Recipients field; and archive the report in the Scheduled Report Archive page (Reports > Create Report > Scheduled Job / Report Archive).

  • Delivery Method. Specifies the method of delivery and the output format for the report. For this example, under Attachment select Inline (HTML).

  • Report Options. The interface for the selected report appears in this pane. Select the options you want included in the automatically generated report. These options are limited by the Access Keys aligned with your SL1 system account and the organization memberships aligned with your account. For this example, supply the report options that you entered when you followed the steps listed in Viewing the Bandwidth Billing Report.

  • To save the report job you created, click the Save button in the bottom right of the page.

Scheduling the Report Job

After a report job has been created, you can schedule the report to run automatically. Scheduled reports are automatically generated by SL1 either once, at a specified time, or at specified regular intervals. You can select the day and time the Report Job runs, the recurrence of the Report Job, if necessary, and save these parameters in a calendar to view and edit later. To schedule a Report Job for this example:

  • Go to the Report Scheduler page (Reports > Create Report > Scheduler).
  • The Report Scheduler page is divided into two parts:
  • The right side displays a calendar where you can view scheduled report
  • The left side includes buttons that control the display of the calendar on the right side.
  • To schedule a Report Job, select the day you want to schedule the report. You can do this by selecting the day from the large or small calendar, or by clicking the day button if you want to schedule the Report Job for the current day. For this example, select the first day of the month.
  • After you have selected a day, the calendar will display an hourly view. You can select the scheduled report to run at the beginning or half mark of the hour by clicking at the top or bottom of the desired hour, or you select the entire hour or multiple hours by clicking and dragging the mouse. For this example, select 9:00 a.m.

  • After selecting the time of the report, the Schedule Report Instance page appears. Define the following fields:
  • Event Color. Select from a range of colors in the drop-down list. The report name will now appear in the selected color in the calendar. Leave the color as the default black for this example.

  • Launch Event. Select the date and time to generate the report. By default, the date and time are set as the date and time you selected in the calendar views, which in this example are 04/01/2012 and 9:00.
  • Recurrence. Specifies whether the report is recurring or not. Select by interval and then select 1 in the every number field and months in the every interval field to make the report recur once every month.
  • Recur Until. If you specified that the event is recurring, this field appears. This field specifies the amount of time for which the report will recur. You can select no limit or specified date. If you select specified date, you must enter a date in the date field to the right.
  • Report Job. Select the Billing Report for Sales report job you created in Creating a Report Job.
  • Report Instance Name. Supply a name for the scheduled report. For this example, input the same name as the report job: Billing Report for Sales.
  • Report Instance Description. Supply the description of the scheduled report, e.g. "Monthly billing report for the customer".

  • To save the scheduled report, click the Save button. If you want to cancel the scheduled report, click the Cancel button.

  • If you click [Save], the scheduled report will appear in the calendar at the time it is scheduled to occur: