Introduction

Audience of This Guide

This guide is primarily for:

CloudBlue Commerce configuration engineers
Maintenance and support engineers
Service connector developers

About Vendor-rated Data Manager

CloudBlue Commerce functionality can be extended with additional applications based on micro-service architecture.

Vendor-rated Data Manager is an extension which:

allows you to import vendor-rated usage data for pay-as-you-go (PAYG) services to CloudBlue Commerce.
rates each imported data item based on the corresponding rating model and calculates the charges for the consumed services.

The calculated charges are then automatically included in invoices for resellers and end customers. The calculated provider costs are used for settlement between the provider and the vendor.

Business Purpose

Vendor-rated Data Manager:

Automates charge calculation for PAYG service usage data across the distribution chain, from the End Customer to the Vendor.
Ensures clarity and consistency of rated PAYG service usage data, which:
- Brings more robustness to your business
- Simplifies reconciliation
- Helps in profit and loss analysis

Distribution Chain Structure

Vendor-rated Data Manager calculates charges for the following three interrelated distribution parties:

Provider: the owner of the distribution contract with the vendor ("distribution contract owner")
- Reseller
  - End Customer

These roles can be played by different parties depending on the distribution chain structure. However, the relationship between them is always the same:

Distribution through regional operating units ("OPCOs"):
- L₀ (Provider): CloudBlue Commerce installation owner
  - L₁ (Provider's OPCO): Provider ("distribution contract owner")
    - L₂ (Reseller): Reseller
      - ...
        L_i (Reseller): Reseller
        L_i+1(Reseller's OPCO): Reseller
        ...
        L_n (Customer): End Customer
Distribution through third-party resellers:
- L₀ (Provider): Provider ("distribution contract owner")
  - L₁ (Reseller): Reseller
    - ...
      - L_n-1 (Reseller): Reseller
        L_n (Customer): End Customer
A reseller's distribution network, including regional operating units ("OPCOs"):

Note: A reseller of any level can have their own distribution contract with a vendor and thus can also be a "contract owner".
- L₀ ...
  - L_i (Reseller): Provider ("distribution contract owner")
    - L_i+1 (Reseller's OPCO): Reseller
      - ...
        L_n (Customer): End Customer
Direct distribution:
- L₀ (Provider or Reseller): Provider ("distribution contract owner")
  - L₂ (Customer): End Customer

How It Works

The scheme below illustrates a high level data flow.

Data Processing Prerequisites

To be able to process vendor-rated usage data, Vendor-rated Data Manager requires that all reported usage items have:

MPNs
Reconciliation IDs
Vendor Contract IDs: must be set at the level of the vendor contract owner or vendor contract owner’s operating unit that owns the service plan.

How Vendor-rated Data Manager Receives and Processes Usage Data

Usage data for PAYG services is rated by service vendors for a distribution chain of three main parties:

Provider: a "distribution contract owner" who distributes through regional operating units ("OPCOs") or third-party resellers
Reseller: an "OPCO" or a third-party reseller
End Customer: a service consumer

Note: Variable distribution network compositions are supported. There can be several provider parties and multiple reseller parties and a third-party reseller can have a distribution contract with the service vendor and play the provider role for its subresellers.

Vendor-rated Data Manager supports the following rating models (or "schemas") for usage data exported by vendors:

Usage data rated by the vendor for all parties (Tiers Rated): The vendor calculates the costs and prices for consumed services for the Provider, the Reseller, and the End Customer based on sales margins configured in the vendor's system. No additional calculations are necessary.
Usage data rated by the vendor for the End Customer (Price Rated): The vendor calculates the charges for the End Customer. The costs for the Provider and Reseller must be calculated on the Provider's side based on the End Customer prices and sales margins configured in CloudBlue Commerce.
Usage data rated by the vendor for the Provider (Cost Rated): The vendor calculates the charges for the Provider. The prices for the Reseller and End Customer must be calculated on the Provider's side based on the Provider costs and sales markups configured in CloudBlue Commerce.

Vendor-rated Data Manager receives vendor-rated usage data in one of these ways:

VRD Collector automatically sends vendor-rated usage data to Vendor-rated Data Manager using API.
Vendor-rated usage data is imported from CloudBlue Connect using API or uploaded manually using CloudBlue Commerce Provider Control Panel.

Warning: Applications must submit usage data using only one method: using either APS counters or report files. Submitting usage data alternating the two methods is not supported and will lead to malfunction.

Vendor-rated Data Manager processes the received vendor-rated usage data in the following way:

Using a periodic task, Charges Rate Task, it processes the vendor-calculated charges and calculates the remaining charges based on the imported data and configured margins and markups in the following way:
- Usage data rated by the vendor for all parties (Tiers Rated): For this data type, the microservice makes no additional calculations. The imported charges are included in invoices without modifications.
  
  If usage data is reported without provider ("distribution contract owner") costs for the Tiers Rated model:
  
  The usage data is processed but reconciliation may be complicated. If a PAYG application does not report provider costs for the Tiers Rated model, contact the application developer and the service vendor.
  
  Note: Azure NCE version 1.5 mandatorily reports provider costs data, which simplifies reconciliation. If your Azure NCE application does not report provider costs for the Tiers Rated model, upgrade it to version 1.5.
- Usage data rated by the vendor for the End Customer (Price Rated): For this data type, the microservice calculates the costs for the other distribution chain parties (from the lowest level Reseller to the Contract Owner) based on the configured margins using the following formula:
  
  Cost = Price * (1 - Margin / 100)
  
  Where the fields have the following values depending on the distribution party*:
  - Cost is the distributor’s cost (a contract owner’s cost or a reseller's cost).
  - Price is the subscription price of the resource received from the vendor and paid by the End Customer.
  - Margin is the TOTAL MARGIN value at the contract owner's or reseller level.
  *Contract Owner can be a distribution contract owner or its OPCO at any level depending on the distribution chain structure.
- Usage data rated by the vendor for the Provider (Cost Rated): For this data type, the microservice calculates the prices for the other distribution chain parties - the Reseller and the End Customer - based on the configured markups using the following formula:
  
  Price = Cost * (1 + Markup / 100)
  
  Where the fields have the following values depending on the distribution party*:
  - Price is the distributor's sales price (a contract owner's or reseller's sales price).
  - Cost is the distributor's cost (the price paid for the product item usage to the immediate upper-level distributor).
  - Markup is the YOUR MARKUP value defined by the distributor.
  Note: The End Customer pays the price calculated at the lowest reseller's level. Distributors can regulate the price using markups depending on market conditions. The effective price for the End Customer depends on markups defined by all distributors and does not depend on markup recommendations distributors give to their resellers.
  
  *Contract Owner can be a distribution contract owner or its OPCO at any level depending on the distribution chain structure.
The resulting charges are included in billing orders and invoices (customer invoices, reseller transactions, and future reseller invoices).
The charges rated by Vendor-rated Data Manager are processed by Billing using another periodic task, ChargesProcessing, which generates billing orders and reseller transactions.

For troubleshooting, please see Monitoring and Troubleshooting.

High-Level Architecture

Vendor-rated Data Manager is a microservice with its own release cycle. It is not included in the CloudBlue Commerce distribution package by default and must be installed to the platform separately. This component is dependent on the VRD Collector component which is a part of CloudBlue Commerce platform.

VRD Collector is responsible for collecting vendor-rated data from APS connectors. APS connectors represent integration mediators between service vendors and CloudBlue Commerce. For example, AWS services can be integrated with the help of an AWS APS connector. APS connectors must support vendor-rated data import and implement the RatedDataSupport APS type. An example of implementing an APS connector supporting VRD scheme can be found in the APS documentation. To understand whether a particular APS connector supports the VRD approach, please refer to the connector documentation.

Vendor-rated Data Manager communicates with CloudBlue Commerce components and vendor systems in the following way:

CloudBlue Commerce Compatibility

Vendor-rated Data Manager is compatible with CloudBlue Commerce in the following way:

		CloudBlue Commerce	UX1 for Providers
		20.5
Vendor-rated Data Manager	1.3.377	Yes	Yes

Limitations

Currently, Vendor-rated Data Manager has the following limitations:

Vendor-rated Data Manager supports only rated usage data. Non-rated usage data, which reports only the consumed quantity (which then must be rated based on a price list), is not supported.

For more limitations please see Creating Service Plans for PAYG Services.