Cyclops: Rating-Charging-BillingSolution for Cloud providers
Cyclops is a comprehensive dynamic rating-charging and billing solution for cloud services. Designed for IaaS, as well as PaaS and SaaS.
Usage Data Records
UDR micro-service connects to cloud installation such as OpenStack, or CloudStack and autonomously collects the usage data. Harmonised data is being saved into a Time Series Based database and exposed through REST APIs.
Rating & Charging
Dynamic rates are generated through a rule engine by considering the various policies, environmental factors and pricing strategies. A charge for the usage made is calculated by using the harmonised data from UDR micro-service.
Billing
Various plans, discounts and coupons are considered through a billing engine to calculate the price to be paid by the user. Once the invoice is generated, the service connects to the payment gateway for payment fulfilment.
Dashboard
Data from the UDR, RC and Billing micro-services is presented to the end user in the form of charts, statistics and bills. Administrators can manage user accounts, select what meters are being used and configure the rating details.
About Cyclops
Rating, Charging, and Billing are key activities that allows a service provider to fix monetary values for the resources, and allows it to bill the customers consuming the services.
Architecture
The architecture is modular in nature and made up of 3 main micro-services, communicating with each other using REST APIs and JSON exchange format.