Administrator Usage Operation Workflows
Applies To: Windows Azure Pack
A billing adapter typically should make regular calls to the Usage REST API to synchronize its usage information with a Windows Azure Pack installation. In a high frequency scenario this should be done once a minute. The administrator operation workflow to support this high frequency is as follows:
High Frequency Billing Adapter
The workflow for an automated billing system is as follows:
Create a plan / add-on in Windows Azure Pack
Configure plan / add-on
Wait for plan / add-on propagation into Billing System and configure.
Set plan / add-on as public in Windows Azure Pack
If step 3 does not complete:
Clone the plan /add-on in Windows Azure Pack. This preserves the configuration data.
Delete the original plan / addon in Windows Azure Pack
Go to step 3 above using the cloned plan/add on.
For information about how the collected data should be processed, see Handling Usage Event Data.
Billing Adapter without High Frequency Synchronization
A billing adapter can query usage data less frequently. For example when a billing system does not use the Real-Time Billing Approval API, and only synchronizes with Windows Azure Pack usage data once per day. In this case, step three above must be done manually by an administrator. An additional step requires updating the mechanism by which the mappings between Windows Azure Pack entities and Billing System entities are maintained, so future operations handled by the billing adapter can be performed on their correct counterparts. This alternative approach is shown below:
Create a plan / add-on in Windows Azure Pack
Create a plan / add-on in the billing system
Update mapping mechanism between Windows Azure Pack and the billing system.