CN107493176B - A billing method and system - Google Patents

Abstract

The present application discloses a charging method and system, which relate to the technical field of communications and are used for charging NFV services. The method includes: receiving the NFV service request sent by the client, the NFV service request is used to apply for the NFV service; determining the charging policy according to the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service; The charging policy, so that the MANO network element charges the NFV service according to the charging policy. This application is applicable to the charging process of NFV services.

Description

A billing method and system

technical field

The present application relates to the technical field of communications, and in particular to a charging method and system.

Background technique

Network Function Virtualization (Network Function Virtualization, NFV) is to carry various software-based network device functions by using general-purpose hardware such as X86 and virtualization technology, so that network device functions no longer depend on dedicated hardware, so that operators It can realize rapid development and deployment of new services, and perform automatic deployment, elastic scaling, fault isolation and self-healing based on actual business needs.

Based on the NFV platform, operators can provide users with various NFV services, such as: NFV infrastructure as a service (NFV Infrastructure as a Service, NFVIaaS), NFV platform as a service (NFV Platform as a Service, NFVPaaS), virtualized Network Function as a Service (Virtualized Network Function as a Service, VNFaaS) and Virtualized Network Function Software as a Service (Virtualized Network Function Software as a Service, VNFSaaS). Because users can customize different NFV services according to their own needs, NFV services do not have a unified billing standard like traditional voice services or traffic services, so traditional voice billing methods or traffic billing methods are not suitable for NFV In the billing process of the business. Based on this, operators urgently need a charging method for NFV services.

Contents of the invention

This application provides a charging scheme for charging NFV services.

In order to achieve the above object, the application provides the following technical solutions:

In a first aspect, the present application provides a charging method, the method comprising:

receiving the NFV service request sent by the client, where the NFV service request is used to apply for the NFV service;

Determine the charging policy according to the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service;

Delivering the charging policy to a management and orchestration system (Management and Orchestration, MANO) network element, so that the MANO network element charges the NFV service according to the charging policy.

In a second aspect, the present application provides a billing system, the system comprising:

A receiving unit, configured to receive an NFV service request sent by a client, where the NFV service request is used to apply for an NFV service;

A policy unit, configured to determine a charging policy according to the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service;

A sending unit, configured to send the charging policy to the MANO network element, so that the MANO network element charges the NFV service according to the charging policy.

In a third aspect, the present application provides a network device, including a transceiver, a memory, and one or more processors; the memory is used to store computer program codes, and the computer program codes include instructions. When the one or more When the processor executes the instructions, the network device executes the method described in the first aspect or any specific implementation manner of the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect, the present application provides a computer-readable storage medium, wherein one or more programs are stored in the computer-readable storage medium, and the one or more programs include instructions. When a processor of a computer executes the instructions , the computer executes the method described in the first aspect or any specific implementation manner of the first aspect.

This application provides a charging method and system, by receiving the NFV service request sent by the client, and according to the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service, determine the charging strategy; send the charging strategy to The MANO network element, so that the MANO network element charges the NFV service according to the charging policy, so that the operator implements charging for the NFV service.

Description of drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present application, the following will briefly introduce the accompanying drawings that need to be used in the embodiments. Obviously, the accompanying drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present application. For Those of ordinary skill in the art can also obtain other drawings based on these drawings without making creative efforts.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the architecture of a NFV system provided in an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a billing method provided by an embodiment of the present application;

Fig. 3 is a flow chart of another charging method provided by the embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 4 is a schematic structural diagram of a billing system provided by an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 5 is a schematic structural diagram of another billing system provided by an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 6 is a schematic structural diagram of a network device provided by an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed ways

The following will clearly and completely describe the technical solutions in the embodiments of the application with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the application. Apparently, the described embodiments are only some of the embodiments of the application, not all of them.

As shown in FIG. 1, an NFV system provided by an embodiment of the present application includes: a network function virtualization infrastructure (Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure, NFVI), a MANO, and a virtualized network function module (Virtualized Network Function, VNF) and Operation Support System (OperationSupport System, OSS)/Business support system (Business support system, BSS).

Among them, NFVI is mainly responsible for fully virtualizing computing, storage, and network hardware resources and mapping them into virtual resources. VNF uses software to implement various traditional physical network functions. VNF runs on NFVI and uses virtual resources virtualized by NFVI. MANO is responsible for the life cycle management and orchestration of NFVI software and hardware resources, as well as the life cycle management and orchestration of VNF. It should be noted that MANO includes virtualized infrastructure managers (Virtualized Infrastructure Managers, VIM), virtual network function managers (Virtualized Network Function Managers, VNFM) and network function virtualization orchestrator (Network FunctionVirtualization Orchestrator, NFVO). Among them, VIM is responsible for the unified management, monitoring and optimization of physical hardware virtualization resources; VNFM is responsible for the life cycle management of VNF; and NFVO is responsible for the arrangement and management of basic resources and upper-layer software resources to realize network services (network service, NS). OSS/BSS is a support system for telecom operators to share information resources, mainly used in network management, system management, billing, business, customer service, etc.

As shown in FIG. 2 , an embodiment of the present application provides a billing system, which is applicable to the NFV system shown in FIG. 1 . The methods include:

101. The client sends an NFV service request to the charging system.

Optionally, the billing system may be OSS or BSS.

It should be noted that the user of the client may be an individual user or an enterprise user. It can be understood that the client can be implemented by hardware, for example: the client is a mobile phone or a notebook; the client can also be implemented by software, for example: the client is application software or a webpage.

In this embodiment of the application, the NFV service request is used to apply for an NFV service.

Optionally, the NFV service request carries information on resources required by the NFV service, and the information on the resources required by the NFV service includes: resource specifications and resource types. It can be understood that the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service can be defined by the user.

Alternatively, the NFV service request carries an NFV service identifier. The charging system may determine the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service according to the identifier of the NFV service.

Exemplarily, the resource type may be a virtual machine manager (Hypervisor), a virtual CPU, a virtual memory, a virtual network, a virtual accelerator, a VNF instance, and an NS instance. The resource specification can be: the number of virtual CPUs, the number of virtual machines, and the memory size.

It can be understood that resource types and resource specifications can form resource templates. For example, the first resource template includes a CPU, 10G memory, and a virtual machine.

Further, the NFV service request carries the basic information of the user, and the basic information of the user may include: user identification, resource usage rights, authentication information, and the like. After receiving the NFV service request, the charging system obtains the basic information of the user from the NFV service request. The billing system identifies whether the user has the right to apply for the NFV service according to the basic information of the user. If the user does not have permission to apply for the NFV service, the billing system returns rejection information to the client; if the user has permission to apply for the NFV service, the billing system executes the next step 102 .

In addition, after receiving the NFV service request, the billing system will forward the NFV service request to the MANO network element, so that the MANO network element can allocate resources for the NFV service. And in the subsequent process, the MANO network element will also manage the NFV service.

102. The charging system determines a charging policy according to the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service.

Wherein, the charging policy includes at least one charging rule. The charging rules include charging objects, charging methods and charging rates.

Exemplarily, the billing object may be a virtual VPU or a VNF instance. The billing methods may be: billing by duration, billing by traffic, and billing by number of users. The rates mentioned are: 10 yuan/hour, 10 yuan/G.

Further, the charging policy may further include: the effective time of the charging rule. Exemplarily, for the NFV service applied by the user, charging rule A is executed during 8:00-12:00 am; and charging rule B is executed during 2:00-4:00 pm. Since different charging rules can be set with different effective times, NFV services can be charged flexibly.

In this embodiment of the present application, the charging system presets a charging policy database, and the charging policy database is used to store at least one charging policy. After receiving the NFV service request, the charging system queries the charging policy database according to the resource type and qualification specification in the NFV service request, so as to determine the charging policy.

Optionally, the NFV service request may also carry charging type information, and the charging type information is used to notify the charging system of the charging type selected by the user. The charging type may include: a basic charging type and a package charging type. It can be understood that when the user selects the basic charging type, the charging system performs charging according to the amount of resources used by the NFV service. When the user selects the package billing type, the billing system charges the user the basic fee of the package, and only when the amount of resources used by the NFV service exceeds the total amount of resources limited by the package, additional charges will be deducted.

In this embodiment of the present application, if the user selects a package billing type, the billing type information may further include basic information about the package selected by the user. The basic information of the package may include: an identifier of the package. Therefore, the billing system determines the basic cost of the package and the total amount of resources limited by the package based on the basic information of the package

Adaptively, the charging system determines the charging policy according to the resource type, resource specification and charging type information in the NFV service request.

103. The billing system issues a billing policy to the MANO network element.

It should be noted that the MANO network elements include: NFVO, VIM and VNFM.

In the embodiment of the present application, the charging system generates policy information, and the policy information carries the identifier of the NFV service and the corresponding charging policy. The charging system sends the policy information to the MANO network element, so that the MANO network element can establish the corresponding relationship between the NFV service and the charging policy according to the NFV service identification and the charging policy in the policy information, so that the MANO network element can According to the charging policy, the NFV service is charged.

104. The MANO network element charges the NFV service according to the charging policy.

In this embodiment of the present application, when the MANO network element monitors the charging trigger event of the NFV service, it starts charging the NFV service according to the charging policy. It should be noted that the charging trigger event is an event of NFV lifecycle management, such as reservation/release of virtualization resources, instantiation of virtual machine/VNF/NS, and capacity expansion/contraction. It can be understood that the charging trigger event of the NFV service may be determined according to actual conditions.

The embodiment of the present application provides a charging method. The charging system determines the charging policy according to the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service by receiving the NFV service request sent by the client; The billing policy is issued to the MANO network element, so that the MANO network element charges the NFV service according to the billing policy, so that the operator realizes the billing of the NFV service.

As shown in Figure 3, the embodiment of the present application provides another billing method. After step 104, the method further includes:

105. The MANO network element reports the bill record to the billing system.

Wherein, the bill record includes at least one billing bill. The billing bill is used to count the expenses of the NFV service within a period of time.

Exemplarily, the billing bill includes: start time, end time, user ID, detailed resource usage bill, resource template, and billing amount. Wherein, the detailed resource usage is used to describe which resources are specifically used by the NFV service.

Exemplarily, the charging bill may be as shown in Table 1.

Table 1

In the embodiment of the present application, the MANO network element periodically merges at least one charging bill into a bill record, and reports the bill record to the billing system.

106. The billing system calculates the cost of the NFV service according to the bill record.

In a specific implementation manner, the billing system counts the billing amount of each billing bill in the bill record, and generates the fee for the NFV service.

107. The billing system charges the user for the NFV service.

In a specific implementation manner, the billing system queries the user's account, and obtains the user's account balance from the user's account; then, the billing system deducts the NFV from the user's account balance. business expenses.

In another specific implementation manner, the billing system sends billing information to the client, so that after the client receives the billing information, the user of the client makes payment according to the billing information.

Through the above method, the operator can charge the user for the NFV service.

As shown in FIG. 4 , an embodiment of the present application provides a charging system for implementing the aforementioned charging method. The system includes:

The receiving unit 11 is configured to receive the NFV service request sent by the client, and the NFV service request is used to apply for the NFV service.

The policy unit 12 is configured to determine a charging policy according to the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service.

The sending unit 13 is configured to send the charging policy to the MANO network element, so that the MANO network element charges the NFV service according to the charging policy.

In a specific implementation manner, the NFV service request further includes: charging type information, the charging type information is used to notify the charging system of the charging type selected by the user, and the charging type includes basic charging type and package billing type. The policy unit 12 is specifically configured to determine a charging policy according to the charging type information and the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service.

The embodiment of the present application provides a billing system. The billing system determines the billing policy according to the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service by receiving the NFV service request sent by the client; The billing policy is issued to the MANO network element, so that the MANO network element charges the NFV service according to the billing policy, so that the operator realizes the billing of the NFV service.

On the basis of the charging system shown in FIG. 4 , this embodiment of the present application provides another charging system. As shown in FIG. 5 , the system includes: a statistics unit 14 and a charging unit 15 .

The receiving unit 11 is configured to receive the bill record reported by the MANO network element, and the bill record includes at least one charging bill.

The statistic unit 14 is configured to statistic the cost of the NFV service according to the bill record.

The charging unit 15 is configured to charge users for the NFV service.

In a specific implementation manner, the charging unit 15 is specifically configured to query the user's account, obtain the user's account balance from the user's account; deduct the user's account balance from the user's account balance. The cost of NFV business.

Through the above billing system, operators can charge users for NFV services.

As shown in FIG. 6 , an embodiment of the present application provides a network device, and the network device includes: a processor 21 , a memory 22 , a transceiver 23 and a bus 24 . The processor 21 , memory 22 and transceiver 23 communicate with each other through the bus 24 . Wherein, the memory 22 is used to store a plurality of instructions to implement a charging method provided in the embodiment of the present application. The processor 21 is configured to receive the NFV service request sent by the client, and the NFV service request is used to apply for the NFV service; determine the charging policy according to the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service; The charging policy is issued by the network element, so that the MANO network element can charge the NFV service according to the charging policy.

Further, the NFV service request also includes: charging type information, the charging type information is used to notify the charging system of the charging type selected by the user, and the charging type includes basic charging type and package charging type . The processor 21 is further configured to determine a charging policy according to the charging type information and the resource type and resource specification required by the NFV service.

Further, the processor 21 is also configured to receive the bill record reported by the MANO network element, the bill record includes at least one billing bill; according to the bill record, the cost of the NFV service is counted ; Charge the user for the NFV service.

Further, the processor 21 is also configured to query the user's account, obtain the user's account balance from the user's account; deduct the NFV service fee from the user's account balance .

Wherein, the processor 21 described in the embodiment of the present application may be one processor, or may be a general term for multiple processing elements. For example, the processor 21 may be a central processing unit (Central Processing Unit, referred to as CPU), or a specific integrated circuit (Application Specific Integrated Circuit, referred to as ASIC), or be configured to implement one or more of the embodiments of the present application. An integrated circuit, for example: one or more microprocessors (digitalsignal processor, DSP for short), or one or more field programmable gate arrays (Field Programmable Gate Array, FPGA for short).

The memory 22 may be a storage device, or a general term for multiple storage elements, and is used to store executable program codes and the like. And the memory 22 may include random access memory (RAM), and may also include non-volatile memory (non-volatile memory), such as disk memory, flash memory (Flash), and the like.

The bus 24 may be an Industry Standard Architecture (Industry Standard Architecture, ISA) bus, a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, or an Extended Industry Standard Architecture (Extended Industry Standard Architecture, EISA) bus, etc. The bus 24 can be divided into an address bus, a data bus, a control bus, and the like. For ease of representation, only one thick line is used in FIG. 6 , but it does not mean that there is only one bus or one type of bus.

An embodiment of the present application provides a computer-readable storage medium, on which a computer program is stored. When the computer program is loaded into a computer and executed by the computer, the computer executes the methods shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 .

Wherein, the computer-readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electrical, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, device, or device, or any combination thereof. More specific examples (non-exhaustive list) of computer-readable storage media include: electrical connections with one or more wires, portable computer disks, hard disks, Random Access Memory (RAM), read-only memory (Read-Only Memory, ROM), Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM), Optical Fiber, Portable Compact Disk Read-Only Memory (Compact Disc Read-Only Memory, CD-ROM), Optical Storage Devices , a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the above. In the embodiments of the present application, a computer-readable storage medium may be any tangible medium containing or storing a program, and the program may be used by or in combination with an instruction execution system, device or device.

Each embodiment in this specification is described in a progressive manner, the same and similar parts of each embodiment can be referred to each other, and each embodiment focuses on the differences from other embodiments. In particular, as for the device embodiment, since it is basically similar to the method embodiment, the description is relatively simple, and for relevant parts, please refer to part of the description of the method embodiment.

The above is only a specific implementation of the application, but the protection scope of the application is not limited thereto, and any changes or replacements within the technical scope disclosed in the application should be covered within the protection scope of the application . Therefore, the protection scope of the present application should be based on the protection scope of the claims.

Claims (8)

1. a kind of charging method, which is characterized in that the described method includes:

It receives the network function that client is sent and virtualizes NFV service request, the NFV service request is for applying for NFV business；

According to resource type needed for the NFV business and resource specification, the preset charging policy database of charge system is inquired, Determine charging policy, the charging policy database is for storing at least one charging policy；

And/or it is resources-type according to needed for the charge type information and the NFV business that include in the NFV service request Type and resource specification determine charging policy, and the charge type information is used to notify the charge type of charge system user selection, The charge type includes basic charge type and set meal charge type；

The resource type comprises at least one of the following: virtual machine manager, virtual center processing unit CPU, virtual memory, void Quasi- network, virtual accelerator, virtual network function VNF example, network service NS example；

The resource specification comprises at least one of the following: virtual cpu number, virtual machine number, memory size；

The charging policy is issued to management and arranging system MANO network element, in order to which the MANO network element is according to the charging plan Charging slightly is carried out to the NFV business.

2. the method according to claim 1, wherein the method also includes:

The ticket writing of the MANO reported by network elements is received, the ticket writing includes at least one charging bill；

According to the ticket writing, the expense of the NFV business is counted；

The expense of the NFV business is collected to user.

3. according to the method described in claim 2, it is characterized in that, the expense for collecting the NFV business to user, specifically Include:

The account for inquiring user, obtains the account balance of the user from the account of the user；

The expense of the NFV business is taken off from the account balance of the user.

4. a kind of charge system, which is characterized in that the system comprises:

Receiving unit, the network function for receiving client transmission virtualize NFV service request, and the NFV service request is used In application NFV business；

Policy unit inquires the preset meter of charge system for the resource type according to needed for the NFV business and resource specification Take policy database, determines that charging policy, the charging policy database are used to store at least one charging policy, and/or, also Resource type and resource needed for charge type information and the NFV business for including according to the NFV service request Specification determines charging policy, the charge type that the charge type information is used to that charge system user to be notified to select, the charging Type includes basic charge type and set meal charge type, and the resource type comprises at least one of the following: virtual machine manager, Virtual center processing unit CPU, virtual memory, virtual network, virtual accelerator, virtual network function VNF example, network service NS example, the resource specification comprise at least one of the following: virtual cpu number, virtual machine number, memory size；

Transmission unit, for issuing the charging policy to management and arranging system MANO network element, in order to the MANO network element Charging is carried out to the NFV business according to the charging policy.

5. system according to claim 4, which is characterized in that the system also includes: statistic unit and charge unit；

The receiving unit, for receiving the ticket writing of the MANO reported by network elements, the ticket writing includes at least one Charging bill；

The statistic unit, for counting the expense of the NFV business according to the ticket writing；

The charge unit, for collecting the expense of the NFV business to user.

6. system according to claim 5, which is characterized in that the charge unit, specifically for inquiring the user's Account obtains the account balance of the user from the account of the user；It is taken off from the account balance of the user described The expense of NFV business.

7. a kind of network equipment, which is characterized in that including transceiver, memory and one or more processors；The memory For storing computer program code, the computer program code includes instruction, when one or more of processors execute When described instruction, the network equipment executes method as described in any one of claims 1 to 3.

8. a kind of computer readable storage medium, which is characterized in that be stored in the computer readable storage medium one or Multiple programs, one or more of programs include instruction, when the processor of computer executes described instruction, the computer Execute method according to any one of claims 1 to 3.