1. ECE Installation Guide
  2. ECE Installation Overview

1 ECE Installation Overview

Learn about the Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) Elastic Charging Engine (ECE) 12.0 installed components and the ECE installation process.

Caution:

Deploying charging for 5G with HTTP Gateway (5G CHF) requires a cloud native deployment of ECE and BRM components. The HTTP Gateway can be used only on an ECE cloud native system.

Topics in this document:

For an overview of the ECE components, see "BRM System Architecture" in BRM Concepts.

About Installing ECE

When you install ECE, you are given the option to install individual ECE software components or to install all ECE software components at once. The components you choose to install depends on what you want to do with ECE. For a development system, you typically install the ECE Server component only.

Overview of ECE Installed Components

The installed components depend on whether you perform an ECE development installation or perform an ECE production installation.

Installed Components in an ECE Standalone Installation

For an ECE development installation, you install and configure the following components:

  • Third-party software, such as Groovy

    Groovy is a prerequisite for running the ECE installer. Groovy is also used for launching the Elastic Charging Controller (ECC), which is the ECE command line interface.

  • Java Runtime Environment (JRE) from Java Development Kit (JDK), if it is not already installed

  • ECE Server software

    ECE Server software includes the core processes required for receiving and processing requests, responding to systems that send requests, and publishing rated event data.

Installed Components in an ECE Integrated Installation

For an ECE production installation, you install and configure the following components:

  • Third-party software, such as Groovy

    Groovy is a prerequisite for running the ECE installer. Groovy is also used for launching the Elastic Charging Controller (ECC), which is the ECE command line interface.

  • Java Runtime Environment (JRE) from Java Development Kit (JDK), if it is not already installed

  • The following products required in a production system, if they are not already installed:

    • PDC

      PDC requires that you also install Oracle WebLogic Server

    • Either Oracle WebLogic Server or Apache Kafka

      Apache Kafka and Oracle WebLogic Server are not part of the core ECE installation. However, ECE uses Apache Kafka or Oracle WebLogic Server when it is used in a production charging solution.

    • Oracle Database to persist the data in the database or Oracle NoSQL Database to persist the data in the cache

    • BRM server

    • Online or offline network mediation software

      Network mediation software is required for sending requests to ECE in a production charging solution. The ECE installation process does not have a dependency on network mediation software. The network mediation software is installed after ECE is installed since it is a client of ECE.

  • The following ECE software components, which you install by running the ECE installer:

    • ECE Server software

      ECE Server software includes the core processes required for receiving and processing requests, responding to systems that send requests, and publishing rated event data.

    • ECE BRM Integration Pack

    • ECE PDC Integration Pack

Overview of the ECE Installation Procedure

The installation procedure follows these steps:

  1. Plan your installation. When planning your installation, you do the following:

    • Determine the scale of your implementation, for example, a small test system or a large production system.

    • Determine how many physical machines you need, and which software components to install on each machine.

    • Plan the system topology, for example, how the system components connect to each other over the network.

  2. Review system requirements. System requirements include:

    • Hardware requirements, such as disk space

    • System software requirements, such as operating system (OS) versions and OS patch requirements, and JVM process requirements (such as memory settings)

    • Information requirements, such as IP addresses and host names

  3. Perform pre-installation tasks.

  4. If you are installing an ECE production installation:

    • Ensure you have installed and configured the following products:

      • BRM

      • PDC

      • Oracle Database or Oracle NoSQL Database (based on your persistence requirement)

      • Oracle WebLogic

      • Apache Kafka and Apache ZooKeeper (if you are using them for ECE notifications)

    • Set up either a JMS Topic in Apache Kafka or a JMS queue in Oracle WebLogic for ECE notification events

    • Create the required Oracle Advanced Queueing (AQ) database queues (DBMS AQs) for BRM update requests

  5. Install ECE.

    You may need to run the ECE installation multiple times. For example, when performing an ECE production installation, you run the installer to install all ECE software components, and then run the installer again to install the ECE Server component so that you can run Rated Event Formatter on a separate machine.

  6. Perform post-installation tasks.

    If you are installing an ECE production installation, do one of the following for handling ECE acknowledgment events and failed customer data updates.

    • If you are using Apache Kafka, create an Notification Topic and a Suspense Topic.

    • If you are using Oracle WebLogic Server, create an Acknowledgments Queue and a Suspense Queue.

  7. Verify the installation.

  8. If you are installing an ECE production installation, install and configure your network mediation software, such as Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller.

Overview of the ECE Installation Procedure for Upgrade

Note:

A direct upgrade from an existing ECE release is not supported.

If you have an existing ECE installation (earlier release installation), and you are installing ECE 12.0, you need to follow these steps:

  1. Plan your installation.

  2. Review system requirements.

  3. Back up your existing configuration.

    Back up all files of the existing ECE installation on the driver machine.

  4. Create a new directory for the new installation on the driver machine.

  5. Upgrade system requirements that are required by the new release:

    • Install the required version of JRE/JDK.

    • Do one of the following:

      • If you want to store all the ECE data in the database, use Oracle Database. You can use the BRM database to persist the ECE data.

      • If you want to continue to persist only the rated events in Oracle NoSQL database, install the required version of Oracle NoSQL Database.

    • Verify that you have installed the required version of Oracle WebLogic Server.

      Installing Oracle WebLogic Server is a pre-requisite for PDC so this is the version that PDC requires.

    • Install Apache Kafka if you are using Topics rather than queues for handling notification events and BRM update requests.

    • Install the required version of BRM.

    • Install the required version of PDC.

    • Upgrade your network mediation software.

  6. Install ECE.

    You install ECE in the new directory on the driver machine.

  7. Perform the following post-installation tasks:

    • Merge configurations from the existing installation into the new installation.

    • Upgrade extension code.

    • Update BRM configuration files.

    • Deploy the new ECE installation onto server machines.

    • Stop the ECE nodes of your existing installation.

    • Restore your ECE system by reloading data from BRM and PDC.

    • Start all ECE nodes of the new installation.

  8. Verify the installation.

ECE Installation Options

You can install ECE in two ways:

  • GUI installation: Use the GUI installation when you want to interact with the installer GUI during installation.

  • Silent installation: The silent installation enables you to perform a non-interactive installation of ECE. The silent installer uses a response file that contains the installation parameters and values. Use the silent installation when you are repeatedly installing ECE using the same configuration. Silent installation is a way of setting installation configurations only once and then using those configurations to duplicate the installation on many machines.

    The silent installer runs in the background without requiring any user intervention. To obtain the silent installation response file, you run the GUI installation using the record option for the first install. The GUI installer creates a response file with the parameters and values that you specify during the installation. You can then copy and edit the response file to reflect the specifics of your target system, and to contain your preferred installation options.

Ensuring a Successful ECE Installation

The ECE installation should be performed only by qualified personnel. You must be familiar with your operating system.

Follow these guidelines:

  • As you install each component (for example, Groovy and JDK), verify that the component installed successfully before continuing the installation process.

  • Pay close attention to the system requirements. Before you begin installing the software, make sure your system has the required base software. In addition, make sure that you know all of the required configuration values, such as host names and port numbers.

  • As you create new configuration values, write them down. In some cases, you need to re-enter configuration values later in the procedure.

Directory Placeholders Used in This Guide

Table 1-1 shows the placeholders that are used in this guide to refer to the directories that contain ECE system components.

Table 1-1 Directory Placeholders

Placeholder Directory

ECE_home

The directory in which ECE is installed. This directory contains the ECE Server software directory (ECE_home) and the SDK directory (ECE_home/ocecesdk) and various installation-related files.