1 Overview of the BRM Cloud Native Deployment

Learn about configuring Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) to run as a cloud native application in a containerized and orchestrated deployment architecture.

Topics in this document:

About the BRM Cloud Native Deployment

Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM), along with the following BRM applications, are available in a cloud native deployment option, supporting a Kubernetes-orchestrated containerized multi-service architecture to facilitate continuous integration, continuous delivery, and DevOps practices. This allows you to harness the benefits of the cloud with BRM's services.

  • Oracle Communications Pricing Design Center (PDC)

  • Oracle Communications Elastic Charging Engine (ECE)

  • Oracle Communications Pipeline Configuration Center (PCC)

  • Oracle Communications Billing Care

  • Oracle Communications Business Operations Center

Note:

You can also deploy Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller on a cloud native environment. See "About the Offline Mediation Controller Cloud Native Deployment" in Offline Mediation Controller Cloud Native Installation and Administration Guide for more information.

You can set up your own BRM cloud native environment or build your own images of BRM and its applications. You use the cloud native deployment package to automate the deployment of BRM products and speed up the process to get services up and running, with product deployments preconfigured to communicate with each other through Helm charts.

BRM Cloud Native Deployment Architecture

In the BRM cloud native architecture, each BRM service runs as a container and deploys as a Kubernetes pod, which is the fundamental building block of Kubernetes. Many core BRM services can be deployed and managed as multiple replicas within a Kubernetes replica set.

Figure 1-1 shows the pods and other components in a typical BRM cloud native deployment.

Note:

Not all pods are shown for clarity. Pod names are descriptive and may differ from actual names in some cases.

Figure 1-1 BRM Cloud Native Deployment Architecture


Description of Figure 1-1 follows
Description of "Figure 1-1 BRM Cloud Native Deployment Architecture"

In a cloud native deployment:

  • PDC, Billing Care, Business Operations Center, and PCC are client applications. They connect to the CM, which represents the business logic layer of BRM, by using the Portal Communications Protocol (PCP).

  • The CM communicates with other pods, which represent the data management layer of BRM, by using PCP.

  • All PCP communication is encrypted using Transport-Layer Security (TLS).

  • The data managers (DMs) interact with other downstream products that run the business logic.

    The downstream products can be containers or an on-premise system.

  • ECE rates events and applies charges.

  • Rating files for the batch pipeline are fed in through a Kubernetes PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC). The batch pipeline output is also available in a PVC for consumption by the Rated Event (RE) Loader pod.

The figure contains the following pods:
  • A Kubernetes cluster, which sits in the middle of the architecture. It includes all Network Integration pods, Offline Mediation pods, API Integration pods, In-Memory Charging Grid (ECE) pods, Billing (BRM) pods, and User Experience (UX) pods.
    • Network Integration pods: This consists of the following:

      • RADIUS Gateway: This is a network-facing RADIUS Server.

      • Diameter Gateway: This is a network-facing Diameter Server.

      • HTTP/2 (CHF) Gateway: This is an integrated Charging Function (CHF) capability that serves 5G standalone (SA) HTTP/2 Service Based Architecture network requests.

      • CDR Formatter (CGF): The call detail record (CDR) formatter extracts unrated 5G SA CDRs from the CDR storage database and formats them for the Kafka messaging service or disk storage. The CHF-CDR format is aligned with 3GPP TS 32.298 v16.5.0.

    • Offline Mediation pods: This consists of the following:

      • Offline Mediation Administrator: This is the Offline Mediation Controller administrator server.

      • Offline Mediation Node Manager: This is the Offline Mediation Controller node manager.

    • API Integration pods: This consists of the following:

      • SOAP Web Service APIs: This supports SOAP Web Services APIs.

      • REST APIs: This supports REST APIs.

      • TM Forum Open APIs: This supports TM Forum-aligned REST APIs.

    • In-Memory Charging Grid (ECE) pods: This consists of the following:

      • Real-time Customer Sync (from BRM): This applies synchronous or real-time customer account data updates from BRM to the in-memory charging grid.

      • Pricing Data Sync: This loads the pricing data from PDC into the charging grid.

      • Customer Loader (from BRM): This supports the initial loading and asynchronous updates of customer, data, credit limit data, offer profiles, product offering cross-reference data, and configuration objects from BRM to the Elastic Charging Engine.

      • Elastic Charging Server: This is the core in-memory grid-based charging service that supports rating, balance management, and session management.

      • CDR Gateway (CDF): This generates 5G SA unrated CDRs by processing requests from the HTTP/2 Gateway and persists them in the CDR storage database.

      • Business Logic Calls (to BRM): This sends information to the BRM server when business logic must be triggered or when updates are made to the BRM database.

      • Rated Event Formatter: This formats the rated events generated from the in-memory charging grid to BRM.

    • Billing (BRM) pods: This consists of the following:

      • Rated Event Loader: This loads the rated events generated by the in-memory charging grid into the BRM Database.

      • BRM Schema Initializer: This initializes the BRM Schema.

      • Account Migration Tool: This moves accounts between BRM schemas.

      • Paymentech Data Manager: This provides an interface to the Paymentech credit card processing service.

      • HTML Invoice Formatter: This is an HTML formatter for invoices.

      • BOC Job Executor (PJE): This processes batch jobs through Business Operations Center.

      • EAI Java Server: This enables you to integrate BRM with other Java-based data-sharing applications in your system.

      • Discounting: This is the real-time discounting for subscription charging and billing.

      • Batch Pipeline: This is a rating engine used for rating large groups of offline charges.

      • EAI Data Manager: This supports the publishing of business events for external Enterprise Application Integration (EAI).

      • Roaming Pipeline: This processes roaming CDRs.

      • Business Logic Server (CM): This is an extensible and configurable business logic server that supports a rich set of revenue management functionality covering billing, invoicing, and accounts receivable processes.

      • Invoice Data Manager: This is a data manager for moving invoices to an external database.

      • Kafka Data Manager: This is a pod that supports integration to a Kafka messaging server for synchronizing internal business notification events to an external system.

      • LDAP Data Manager: This allows you to integrate BRM cloud native with an LDAP directory server. It replicates account and service data in the BRM database to the LDAP database.

      • Email Data Manager: This enables you to send email notifications and invoices to your customers.

      • Vertex Data Manager: This allows you to integrate BRM with the Vertex tax processing software.

      • Oracle Data Manager: This provides the integration between the core BRM business logic server and the Oracle Database. It performs Object Relational Mapping.

    • The User Experience pods: This consists of the following:

      • Pricing Design Center: This is an offer design tool and product catalog that supports charging and billing.

      • Billing Care: This is an agent that assists customer account management and a care application.

      • Business Operations Center: This helps create, schedule, and view the revenue management-related business operations. This includes billing, invoicing, payment collection, refunds, B/L reporting, and custom jobs.

      • Pipeline Configuration Center: This is a web-based application that serves as the user interface for Pipeline Manager.