HP RealTime Charging Solutions

HP IUM Charging Manager

Technology continues to drive the always-on lifestyle

Consumers are embracing the high-quality telecommunications services that meet the demands of their lifestyles. New technologies are being deployed, such as IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and Web 2.0, which let users move freely and transparently across heterogeneous networks to access a broad range of services. By enabling these services to be more easily accessed, used and paid for, operators can tap the extraordinary potential for new revenue streams and higher profits. At the same time, these services introduce several critical business and operational challenges. IMS and Web 2.0 services drive the Internet Protocol (IP) world into the heart of your back office. New approaches must be taken in areas such as charging, assuring revenue, managing fraud, delivering quality and attracting customers and keeping them loyal. Already, many carrier back-office systems cannot adequately handle the increased complexities, speed and volumes of data surrounding charging and billing requirements. Real-time charging delivered by HP Internet Usage Manager (IUM) Charging Manager, provides an opportunity to expand market reach and offer new services to both prepaid and postpaid customers.

It enables enhanced control over pricing, so you can offer differentiated services through bundling, promotions and loyalty programs and compete on more than flat-rate pricing. HP flexible charging solutions are built on open frameworks and standards to ease the transformation to service convergence. You can tap new markets with confidence, because HP has globally proven leadership in IMS and Web 2.0 services.

The HP IUM Charging Manager

HP delivers a purpose-built solution for convergent and real-time charging on current and next-generation networks. HP IUM Charging Manager software is the industry-leading solution for capture and correlation of event usage data and all online and offline service charging models. The HP IUM Charging Manager provides the foundation for charging of events in real time. It authorizes the events interacting with rating and balance management systems and controls network elements to create and deliver real-time usage data to downstream business support systems and operations support systems (BSS/OSS). Charging Manager provides real-time session management, charging control and quota management, all supported by powerful business rules that enable you to rapidly implement low-latency, highly reliable services.

Communications, Media and Entertainment Solutions

Figure 1 HP IUM Charging Managers real-time charging architecture supports real-time authorization of service usage requests with reusable, configurable templates.

Access technologies

Core network capabilities CGF

IUM Charging Manager cluster

SIP server Load balancing and event routing Pre-rating Correlation Messaging Charging rules

Billing system

IUM real-time rule engine Dup detection Aggregation Quota Session data Subscriber data Policy rules

Presence Profile QoS Location Identity

Real-time rating

Balance management

SID

Policy server

Today, HP IUM Charging Manager is being used successfully by leading service providers around the world to deliver a common service portfolio across prepaid, postpaid and pay-now plans.

Features
Pre-configured templates and out-of-the-box charging models, to reduce customization work, smooth integration issues and speed time-to-service

Purpose-built HP IUM Charging Manager software Configurable business logic, which shortens time-tosupports multiple online and offline service charging revenue and helps to capture fleeting business models on a single platform, and easily manages both opportunities by enabling dynamic testing of charging converged IP voice and data services, along with mobile models for voice, data, content and e-commerce services and fixed voice services. HP IUM Charging Manager without interrupting operations architecture is designed to capitalize on IP for 3G and Session management, quota functions and interaction future networks, and addresses the requirement for with service control points (SCPs) and data control seamless real-time charging. Risk is minimized through points (DCPs), to enable highly flexible real-time charging HPs proven history in IP and business support solutions. solutions with multiple charging models to be A solid platform for the transition to IP Multimedia implemented with any existing legacy or new BSS/OSS Subsystem (IMS) and 3rd Generation Partnership Project infrastructure. Interaction can be also realized through (3GPP) requirements, HP IUM Charging Manager is being a complementary product, HP OpenCall Service Access used to enable the convergence of a common service Controller (OCSAC). portfolio across prepaid, postpaid and now-pay plans Two-way request and response model, which supports delivered over all access technologies. next-generation and legacy protocols including Diameter, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), remote authentication dial in user service (RADIUS), GPRS Tunnelling Protocol (GTP), Parlay X, Simple Object Access Protocol/Extensible Markup Language (SOAP/XML) and Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) Service scalability, to provide the ability to dynamically and cost-effectively scale with increasing subscriber volumes and roll-out new services to existing subscribers with minimum impact

 Business rule-based policy control, web-based centralized management, load balancing and event routing, for extremely high performance and high availability (99.999 percent) and low latency (approximately 8 milliseconds)

Benefits
Accelerates time to market with lower costs Charging Manager ships with pre-configured templates that support charging models out of the box and enable the rapid creation and testing of charging models for voice, data, content and e-commerce. Charging Manager supports both session-based charging and event-based charging for content, as well as bearerbased charging for volume. The included templates and process automation capabilities reduce staffing requirements and service roll-out time and enable the easy modification of charging rules without slow and expensive code changes. Enables multi-level pricing plans and cross-service promotions User-configurable charging logic accommodates complex pricing plans. The logic can be easily modified to implement a minimum session charge, and/or implement time-based charging for web browsing. Charging Manager provides outstanding flexibility for real-time charging solutions, including support for multiple concurrent sessions, and can be implemented with any existing legacy or new IMS BSS/OSS infrastructure. Charging Manager performs the authorization for user service access requests, interacts with real-time rating engines to determine the users service charge, communicates with balance management systems to reserve balance, and then interfaces with the network to allow or deny service delivery. In addition, Charging Manager interfaces with advice of charge (AoC) systems that interactively advise users of service charges and/or a low account balance. Provides an investment-wise path to IMS network and service deployment Simple protocol conversion with policy-based event routing and congestion-control capabilities offer service providers significant benefits to standardize networks and migrate to IMS. Charging Manager communicates with application servers and business support systems with a bi-directional, asynchronous, request-response communication model that supports all new and legacy protocols, including Diameter, SIP, RADIUS, GTP, Parlay X, SOAP/XML and CORBA. IUM maps into the 3GPP TS 32.200 (R6) charging specification for IMS as well as into the Online Charging System (OCS).

Increases return on asset through efficient reuse of existing infrastructure Charging Managers real-time two-way (north/south) communication between application servers and business support systems easily converts from one protocol to another. In addition, Charging Manager can support multiple protocols both southbound and northbound, allowing events to be routed to the appropriate prepaid or postpaid billing system, even when events are mixed. This important feature also allows for event discrimination and policy enforcement, and decouples the network from the BSS/OSS applications. Provides high performance with affordable scalability Charging Managers innovative design handles the extreme transaction requirements of the real-time charging environment. The solution offers load balancing, policy-based congestion control and event prioritization. It achieves high performance by leveraging any Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) compliant in-memory database. The solution delivers high availability with fast failure detection, transparent failover and active/standby redundancy and active/active redundancy in situations where no session state replication is required. Charging Manager has been tested to operate with average latencies of 8 milliseconds and throughputs of over 49,000 transactions per second. Integrates with HP solutions HP IUM Charging Manager leverages the breadth of HP Software and Communications, Media and Entertainment (CME) solutions to deliver a range of charging options based on your business needs. When coupled with HP OpenCall Service Access Controller, its telecommunications-focused software and hardware for voice call control and call management services, Charging Manager can cover a wide range of charging interfaces to integrate both real-time voice and data charging. HP OpenCall Service Access Controller provides access and service control; the pre-integration of HP IUM Charging Manager and HP OpenCall Service Access Controller provides a tested, complete real-time voice and data charging solution. Integrates with best-in-class partner solutions HP IUM Charging Manager capitalizes on the strong partnerships HP has with todays leading technology innovators. Its flexible architecture is built on industry standards and utilizes open interfaces to give you maximum freedom of choice when integrating billing products, rating engines, balance management systems, customer repositories, product catalogs, payment gateways, and third-party settlement and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

The HP advantage
Increasingly complex and rapidly evolving communications solutions force service providers to deliver ever more innovative services to the market while keeping customers loyal and insulated from the complexities behind the services. To achieve this, communications and media service providers need strategic partners that can do more. HP offers targeted and seamless services and solutions, integrated with partners and delivered quickly and efficiently. HP services and solutions are open and flexible, empowering customers to customize or create value-added services. HP service capabilities provide the expertise to analyze, design, develop, and implement and support the most complex solutions. This one-stop shopping approach allows providers to focus on customersnot suppliers. HP focuses more than 30 years of expertise into a powerful integrated team, the Communications, Media & Entertainment (CME) organization, which along with 500 valued solutions partners, assists the worlds top service and equipment providers, as well as media, entertainment and cable operators, in meeting their subscriber needs. Building upon a foundation of people, processes and technology, HP Consulting and Integration can manage the complete design, global delivery and deployment of critical adaptive infrastructure solutions for todays communications and media services marketplace. HP delivers solutions, technologies and services arrayed across network infrastructure, network services, operation and business support, mobile and rich media solutions, and end-user access. These innovative capabilities, including the class-leading HP OpenCall and HP Software product suites, have made HP a major player that is leading change in the communications, media and entertainment industries.

HP Services
Every HP solution leverages proven global experience that spans people, processes and technology. HP Services consultants understand the communications, media and entertainment marketplace, and can help companies get the most from their IT investments. HP Services can help in these critical areas: Solution consulting servicesHP offers a comprehensive portfolio of consulting services and systems integration capabilities to enable the transformation of communications, media and entertainment business operations. Application modernization servicesHP offers a full range of current and future business need assessments, strategic and technological road maps for change, infrastructure transition services, and monitoring services for the evolved application environments. Mission-critical supportOnsite consulting and technical support is available at whatever level of service the organization desires, including Operational ITSM to help benchmark IT processes against others. Outsourcing servicesHP offers a comprehensive portfolio of innovative and scalable sourcing options, so company personnel can focus time and resources on their core business. Security servicesHP has developed a detailed methodology for secure evolution of the IT environment. Risk is lessened and both the data and the network are protected. Financial servicesHP Financial Services offers a range of creative and flexible financing options that can remove the final obstacle to network evolution. Across the globe, enterprise customers rely on HP Services to design, build, integrate, and manage the IT systems that run their businesses. HP Services capabilities cover consulting and integration, outsourcing, support, and education services, all delivered by more than 69,000 services professionals in 170 countries. As the marketplace continues to evolve, HP Services will be there to help communications, media and entertainment companies adapt and compete.

Technology for better business outcomes

Copyright 2008 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Java is a U.S. trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

To learn more, visit www.hp.com/go/cme

4AA2-0490ENW, June 2008