This chapter is an overview of how client applications and network charging functions integrate with Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management Elastic Charging Engine (ECE).
You can integrate ECE with client applications so that the Elastic Charging Server (charging server nodes) can query data and perform usage processing.
Your client applications use ECE client libraries (the Elastic Charging Client) for connecting to ECE and executing operations for usage requests (charging) and query requests.
Your client applications are part of the Oracle Coherence grid (ECE cluster) but they do not cache ECE business data.
For usage request submitted by charging clients, Elastic Charging Server fetches request-related data, such as the customer and pricing data, performs required preprocessing of the data, rates (calculates the charge), updates the customer balance and active session, and then builds a response. Elastic Charging Server sends the response back to your client application. See "Integrating Charging Clients with ECE".
For query requests submitted by query clients, Elastic Charging Server fetches the data in the query request and builds a response, sending the response back to your client applications. See "Integrating Query Clients with ECE".
Top-up clients, such as those in a Third-Party top-up system, can integrate with ECE. Top-up clients execute operations for update requests (for example, a top-up updates the customer account balance). See "Integrating Top-Up Clients with ECE" for information.
Policy clients, such as the Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF), can integrate with ECE. See "Integrating Policy Clients with ECE".
You can also write client applications for management requests to search for open sessions related to network elements that have failed. For management requests, the Elastic Charging Server searches across the Coherence grid and executes the action on the search results.
ECE offers services that expose its client APIs so that client applications can obtain information from ECE for further processing. See "ECE API Reference" for information about ECE public APIs.
When you install the ECE Server software, the ECE SDK is installed in ECE_home/ocecesdk. The ECE SDK contains client libraries that enable your client applications to connect to the ECE cluster and build different types of requests. The ECE SDK includes sample programs that demonstrate how to use the ECE client APIs. See "About the ECE Sample Programs" for information.