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Configuring Billing aggregation

About Billing aggregation  Top

ContentReporter gives you the ability to generate Billing reports (delimited Text files) based on usage of your network resources. You can import these Billing reports into third-party billing applications. You can select three of twelve fields (such as Hits and Bytes Dropped), the action taken on the data (such as calculating the average or total), the number of minutes over which to measure the data, and the delimiter of the text file (on the Report Definitions Style tab). You configure Billing aggregation on the Administration Billing tab.

To learn more about the Report Definitions Style tab, see the ContentReporter 3.0 Reporting Guide.

Note
Whenever you modify Billing tab settings, you clear the database of all billing data for all ContentReporter servers connected to your database. Any pre-existing query definitions with billing statistics will no longer generate data. If you modify the Billing tab settings, delete any pre-existing query definitions based on Billing statistics, and create new query definitions based on Billing statistics.

Note
Ensure that you have set the number of days to keep billing data on the DB Admin tab high enough to generate meaningful billing reports. To learn more about database rollup, see Configuring database rollups.

The Report Definitions Style tab  Top

The following screen highlights the Text file (Billing report) selection for report output on the Report Definitions Style tab.

Billing Report characteristics  Top

The following table describes Billing report characteristics

Characteristic

Description

Text File Delimiters

Comma (csv), Tab (txt), and Space (txt)

You select the delimiter on the Report Definitions Style tab.

Time Interval

Minutes (from one to 60 minutes)

The number of minutes over which the billing data is aggregated. The shorter you set the interval, the finer the level of detail (or "granularity") of the data you generate.

Available fields

(Billing Statistics)

Hits, Bytes, Bytes Dropped, Packets Requested, Packets Served, Packets Resent, Packets Dropped, Streaming Connect Time, Play Time, Response Time, Streaming Transfer Time, and Streaming Average Bit Rate

Action taken on field data

Minimum, Maximum, Average, or Total

Billing aggregation example  Top

The following table contains an example of billing aggregation settings.

Aggregation settings to bill for total bytes over 30 minute intervals

Billing tab field or box

Value

Billing aggregation interval

30

Field 1

Bytes

Action 1

Total

Enable billing processing

Checked

The relationship between Billing tab settings and available Billing Query statistics  Top

The Administration Billing tab settings determine which three Billing statistics are available for a query definition, and determine how these statistics are calculated. For example, if you select Hits, Bytes Dropped, and Play Time on the Administration tab, these are the only Billing statistics that will be available to you for query definitions. Query definitions that use other Billing statistics do not generate data in reports. If you select to calculate the average of the three statistics on the Administration Billing tab, these statistics will be averaged in every report.

Note
The action taken on each field (Min, Max, Ave, or Total) determines the Billing statistic value you generate in reports.

The Billing tab  Top

The following screen shows the Administration Billing tab with settings for Total Bytes, Maximum Hits, and Average Packets Served, and a five minute billing aggregation interval.

The Query Definition Query Def tab  Top

The following screen illustrates the available Billing Statistics columns on the Query Def tab when the Administration Billing tab is configured for Total Bytes, Maximum Hits, and Average Packets Served.

Configuring Billing aggregation  Top

To configure Billing aggregation, complete the following steps.

Note
Whenever you modify Billing tab settings, you clear the database of all billing data for all ContentReporter servers connected to your database. Any pre-existing query definitions with billing statistics no longer generate data. If you modify the Billing tab settings, delete any pre-existing query definitions based on Billing statistics, and create new query definitions based on Billing statistics.

Step

Action
1

From a page in ContentReporter, click the Administration tab.

Result:

The Administration page appears.
2

Click the Admin button.

Result:

The Cache Group tab appears.
3

Click the DB Admin tab.

Result:

The DB Admin tab appears.
4

Ensure that the number of days to keep billing data is adequate or enter a different number, and click Apply.
5

Click the Billing tab.

Result:

The Billing tab appears.
6

Ensure that the "Enable billing processing" check box is checked.
7

Accept the default Billing Aggregation Interval (5 minutes), or select a different number of minutes from the drop-down list.
8

From the three Field drop-down lists, select the Billing statistics you want available for query definitions and Billing reports.
9

To the right of each Field, select the appropriate action to take upon the Field data from the Action drop-down lists.
10

Click OK or Apply to save the changes to the ContentReporter server.

Result:

The Billing Information Change Warning dialog box appears.
11

Click Yes.

Result:

You have successfully configured billing aggregation.

You can now create a query definition and select these three Billing statistics, create a new (Billing) report definition and select the new query definition for the report, and then generate a Billing report with the new report definition.

To learn more about creating query definitions and report definitions, see the ContentReporter 3.0 Reporting Guide.

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