1 Introduction

Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper's Partner Relationship Management module gives operators a set of Web Services interfaces that can be used to incorporate the Service Provider and Application management parts of the Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper into their customer relationship management (CRM)/partner relationship management (PRM) systems, intranets and extranets.

Integration with External Systems

Administering service provider and application accounts for Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper can be a work-intensive task for operators. Using CRM/PRM applications that are built using the Partner Relationship module can allow operators to shift some of that work to the service providers themselves, as well as giving those service provides a defined and structured channel both to communicate any changes they desire and to monitor their own usage statistics. The operator's task is reduced to simply approving the pre-entered changes, dramatically reducing administration overhead. Using simple Web Service calls, the integrated PRM application can manage a wide range of Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper service provider account services.

The PRM interfaces support Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper's service provider and application administration model, which is described more fully in "The Partner Management Model".

Note:

Users, both operator-based and service-provider-based, who have been given appropriate permissions can also interact with Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper management systems using JMX-based solutions. For information on the MBeans available for use and the attributes and operations they expose, please see Accounts and SLAs Guide.

Security

The PRM Web Services module uses WS-Security to ensure the security of the Web Services based interaction between the PRM and its CRM/PRM application clients. Each request is authenticated using a username token or X.509 certificate that is included in the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) header. For more information on how this works, see the “Interacting with Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper” chapter in the Application Developer's Guide, another document in this set. Although the context in that guide is the SOAP headers of traffic requests, the mechanism described is identical to the one used in with the PRM module.

Note:

For backwards compatibility purposes, a session ID-based login mode is also supported.

Deployment Example

The Partner Relationship Management module consists of two parts:

• The Web Service interfaces that are used by the CRM/PRM application

• The implementation of these Web Services

Figure 1-1 Deployment example

Description of "Figure 1-1 Deployment example"

In the Figure 1-1 there are two CRM/PRM applications, one supporting the Service Provider set of interfaces and the other supporting the more comprehensive Operator set of interfaces. Each of these applications uses Web Service calls to communicate with the host(s) running the PRM Web Services. The PRM Web Services module is deployed by default on the application tier (AT) Tier cluster. The PRM server(s) in turn use Java Management Extensions (JMX) to communicate with the Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper servers that actually handles the telecom traffic.

Managing Partners and Applications Using the Partner Manager Portal

Services Gatekeeper provides you with its Partner Manager Portal application along with the companion application, Partner Portal as “front-office” offering to speed up the development and management of telecom applications.

About Partner Manager Portal

The Partner Manager Portal application is private, internal portal hosted within a telecom's firewall.

You use the Partner Manager Portal application to manage the following:

• Service Provider Account

• Service Provider Group

• Application Instance

Menu selections and/or input fields on well-defined pages of the Partner Manager Portal application create a friendlier workflow, insulating you from the intricacies of OCSG administration and the complexity of the Services Gatekeeper environment.

For more information on how to use Partner Manager Portal, see Services Gatekeeper Partner Manager Portal Online Help.

About the Partner Portal

Partners who use the Partner Portal are assigned to service provider groups and use Partner Portal to create applications.

Note:

About partners and partner groups:

• Partner Manager Portal and Partner Portal use the term "partner" for the term "service provider" found in Services Gatekeeper.

• Partner Manager Portal and Partner Portal use the term "partner group" for the term "service provider group" found in Services Gatekeeper.

All applications created in Partner Portal require approval from within Partner Manager Portal before they are available to be marketed. Additionally, all subsequent changes made to an application when it is in use also require approval from within Partner Manager.

For more information on Partner Portal, see Services Gatekeeper Partner Portal Online Help.