Page 100 - Cloud computing: From paradigm to operation

1 Framework and requirements for cloud computing

The business support systems functional components include:

• product catalogue;
• account management;
• subscription management;
• billing;
• accounts.

9.2.5.4.1 Product catalogue
The product catalogue functional component provides capabilities for cloud service customers to browse a
list of available service offerings which they can purchase, plus a set of capabilities for the management of
the content of the catalogue which are available to staff of the cloud service provider.
Product catalogue entries consist of technical information about each of the service offerings (capabilities
provided by the service, interface definitions for the service including available service operations, security
information), plus related business information such as pricing or rating.

9.2.5.4.2 Account management

The account management functional component provides capabilities for managing cloud service customer
relationships, including:

• management of contracts;
• subscriptions to cloud services;
• entitlements;
• service pricing, which can involve customer-specific terms such as discounts;
• the policies that apply to the treatment of cloud service customer data.
The account management functional component and its related database(s) are subject to stringent requirements for
availability and security due to the importance and the sensitivity of the data related to customer accounts.
9.2.5.4.3 Subscription management

The subscription management functional component handles subscriptions from cloud service customers to particular
cloud services, aiming to record new or changed subscription information from the customer and ensure the delivery
of the subscribed service(s) to the customer.
9.2.5.4.4 Billing

The billing functional component has capabilities for:
• the metering and rating of the use of cloud services by cloud service customers – where metering is the
measurement of the consumption of cloud services by each cloud service customer and rating is the
application of pricing schedules to the metering data. The form of the metering data depends on the nature
of the cloud service and the pricing schedules can involve customer-specific terms (e.g., discounts) and require
algorithmic application against the metering data;
• the generation of invoices based on the charges for the use of cloud services created by the metering and
rating function, and the transmission of the invoices to the cloud service customers. Invoice data is also lodged
with the accounts functional component and the account management functional component.

9.2.5.4.5 Accounts
The accounts functional component holds the capabilities relating to general ledger and general accounting functions,
including accounts receivable and accounts payable. Note that the accounts functional component is used for
accounting for the cloud service provider organization itself and does not deal with the maintenance of individual
customer accounts (those are handled by the account management functional component).

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