For a better understanding of how a service offer is configured in CloudBlue Commerce, let us consider the preparation of the Web Hosting service from the bottom-up.
Each service includes resources that you are going to allocate to your customers. For example, for Web Hosting, you need to provide your customers with a webserver (such as Apache), support for a server-side programming language (such as PHP), databases (such as MySQL), the ability to connect to a webspace using FTP, the ability to download website's log files, the ability to create backups of webspaces and databases, and so on. The resources are represented in CloudBlue Commerce as resource types.
The resources for a particular service are all related and cannot be sold separately. When you open a service provider's online store, you are unlikely to see that the resources are offered separately. Usually, the resources are sold in the form of a plan. In CloudBlue Commerce, resources are combined in a service template. For example, to sell Web Hosting, you need to create a Web Hosting service template in CloudBlue Commerce. The service template defines resource limits for each resource. The limits define the available amount of each resource allocated to a customer. For more detailed information about creating a service template, please refer to the Operations Provider's Guide.
In the online store, you usually see service plans with various subscription periods (for example, a monthly subscription, a quarterly subscription, and so on) and the respective prices. In CloudBlue Commerce, a ready-for-sale commercial offer is represented as a service plan. Each service plan is based on a service template. For more detailed information about configuring service plans, please refer to the Billing Provider's Guide.
CloudBlue Commerce enables you to create your own online store and publish the prepared service plans in it (see the example of online store below). To learn how to configure the online store, please refer to the CloudBlue Commerce Online Store Guide. Furthermore, the service plans can be published in the self-service portals so that customers can buy services via CCP.
When a customer purchases a service plan, the system creates a subscription to this service for a selected period of time. The subscription defines all services and resources allocated to an account on the defined period for a particular price.
The scheme below shows the relations between resources, service templates, service plans, as well as where the sales categories and service plans can be published.
To configure a service for sale, you should perform the following steps:
