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Read Case Study →IaaS (B2B), Cloud Billing
IAAS Billing System for a US Based Cloud Service Provider, Meets 4 Business-Defined KRAs
How a US-based Infrastructure as a Service provider with global presence across 12 countries achieved revenue assurance, multi-level reconciliation, operating margin tracking, and complete billing automation on a single customised platform.
12
Countries
4
KRAs Met
Multi
Currency
100%
Automated
Company
US Based Infrastructure As A Service Provider, Global Presence
Industry
Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS), B2B
Presence
US, Europe, Asia, Middle East, Australia
About the Client
A US Based Infrastructure As A Service provider company with global presence and clients across countries. The client provided a host of cloud computing services such as the VMs, the VPCs, storage devices, memory, different computing processors (CPUs), different operating systems with licenses, different databases, their cluster services, load balancing services and different high availability options etc.
The company operates in the B2B segment, mainly focused on B2B services, serving enterprise clients across 12 different countries across the globe, with the same products offered in different currencies worldwide.
The Challenge
Complex IaaS Billing
Revenue Assurance & Reconciliation
- Revenue Assurance System required to ensure that the primary billing system is rating and charging the consumption of cloud based services accurately
- Revenue Reconciliation required at multiple levels, between the primary and secondary billing systems, between the order streaming system and the billing system, and finally between finance and the order streaming application
Product Management Across 12 Countries
- Maintaining a huge product listing of different cloud resources, products offered in 12 different countries across the globe, hence the same products offered in different currencies worldwide
- Integration involving accepting order requests from an order streaming application which was integrated with the cloud service
Resource Lifecycle & Usage Billing
- Tracking each cloud resource , Maintaining each cloud resource's up time, tracking when it was started, when it was suspended, when it was shut and when it was decommissioned
- Rating and charging the consumption or usage of each cloud resource through billing mediation module
- Invoice generation that involved generating invoices for clients across the globe in different currencies
- Tracking monthly costs of running cloud resources and finding operating margin for the business
The Solution
A Flexible Cloud Billing Software
jBilling (On Premise) was deployed as a Customised Cloud Billing Solution. The implementation included:
- A flexible Product Catalogue , supporting hundreds of different cloud service offerings to be set up and configured, in different currencies
- Integration with the client's Order Streaming application that captured the resource usage, its creation or inception, suspension, resumption, shutting down or decommissioning. The jBilling API layer provided an easy to use API options that allowed the Order Streaming application to continuously create/update the data into the billing system
- A customised billing mediation module implemented such that the usage of each cloud resource is tracked, rated and charged accurately
- A bill run job that ensured that invoices are generated based on the consumption usage of each cloud resource, with each client account using hundreds of these cloud services
- Cost and operational margin tracking, A product catalogue that was split into two different entities: a parent entity to track operational costs and a child entity that tracked the revenue coming from clients
How did the end-to-end IAAS Billing Solution work?
The diagram below pictorially shows the end-to-end workflow of how the IAAS Billing system was implemented.
End-to-end workflow of the IaaS Billing system implementation
Cloud Operations
The client's cloud platform consists of an online web portal through which their customers could access the account and manage their own cloud resources. For example, the customers could add or commission new VMs, new VPCs, new storage devices and so on. They could take several actions through this portal such as adding new resources, suspending existing resources, resuming the suspended services, shutting down a certain resources, decommission existing resources and modify existing resources by re-configuring their attributes, such as upgrading a VM instance with more memory, or downgrading a database instance by using a lower grade CPU, and so on.
Order Management
The client's cloud platform consists of an online web portal through which their customers could access the account and manage their own cloud resources. The customers could add or commission new VMs, new VPCs, new storage devices and so on. They could take several actions through this portal such as adding new resources, suspending existing resources, resuming the suspended services, shutting down a certain resources, decommission existing resources and modify existing resources by re-configuring their attributes, such as upgrading a VM instance with more memory, or downgrading a database instance by using a lower grade CPU, and so on.
Invoicing
The invoicing module usages the charges applied by the billing mediation module and generates the monthly invoices for customer accounts. There are two tenants (or companies) created in the system. The parent company represent the HO (or the Head Office) which defines the product pricing such that it represents the operational costs for all the cloud resources. The second tenant or company is the reseller company (or Sales Office) where the Product Pricing is defined as per the Selling Price of the cloud resource.
The invoice generated in the Head Office company represents the operational cost of the cloud, whereas the invoices generated in the Sales office company represent the client's revenue.
This way both the operational cost and revenue are clearly available for each month from the system. The difference between the two values provides the operating margin. This provide the client a very tight control on their financials and product margins.
Reconciliation
The data generated from the invoices is used to reconcile with other systems, mainly the totals drawn from the primary billing system and from the Order Streaming application. This allows reconciliation amongst systems and early capture of any discrepancies in a critical business system.
Financial Reporting
The financial reports are fetched based on the revenue data generated, mainly the invoice lines carrying the information from the Product Catalogue. There is an easy to use Product Upload option that allows to update the various product parameters. Each product is created and maintained in 12 different currencies, owing to business being run in 12 countries. A csv based product upload option makes it easy to manage pricing changes on the products.
Key Platform Capabilities Used
Resource Lifecycle Tracking
Dual Tenant Cost & Revenue Tracking
Operating Margin Calculation
Multi-Level Reconciliation & Reporting
Revenue Assurance System
CSV Product Upload for 12-Country Pricing
The Results
A customised cloud billing software that met the following 4 KRAs:
KRA 1
Revenue Assurance System
Implemented quite easily. The revenue totals can be checked each day between two systems and differences investigated and fixed easily. Revenue leakage is caught before it affects the business.
KRA 2
Revenue Reconciliation
One reconciliation report provides the differences amongst systems easily and avoids end client impact in billing and charging. Discrepancies are caught and resolved before reaching customers.
KRA 3
Calculation of Operating Costs & Margins
Validated on a monthly basis, validating the pricing mechanism. Giving business inputs so that decisions regarding price revisions can be made and communicated to customers proactively.
KRA 4
Robust Billing Process
Encompassing the billing mediation job and a bill run job that does the bulk of work and provides a complete system automation. Reliable, scalable and requires minimal manual intervention.
Additional Benefits
12
Countries, One Platform
Reduced
Capex & Opex
Daily
Revenue Checks
Additionally, a Reduced Capex and Opex for the cloud billing software; the benefits increasing with the growth of business over a period of time.
Running a Complex Cloud or IaaS Billing Operation?
See how EarnBill handles multi-currency cloud billing, revenue assurance, reconciliation, and operating margin tracking on a single platform.
