New Features in BRM

Support for Shared Oracle Wallet Credentials for Custom DM

You can now configure multiple custom Oracle Data Manager (DM) instances to use different database users while storing their credentials in a shared Oracle wallet.

For a custom DM that connects to the database using a different database user, you can configure a unique dm_process_name. BRM uses the process name to distinguish the corresponding sm_id and sm_pw credentials. If dm_process_name is not configured, BRM continues to use the default sm_id and sm_pw keys.

This enhancement enables multiple custom DMs to securely use separate database accounts without requiring a separate Oracle wallet for each DM.

For more information, see "Configuring Your Custom DM" in BRM Developer's Guide.

BRM Now Supports Agreements for Customer-Specific Commercial Terms

BRM now supports agreements for defining and managing customer-specific commercial terms that differ from the standard terms in the product catalog. For example, you can use an agreement to specify negotiated pricing, product characteristics, payment terms, and other supported information used during product purchase, rating, billing, and invoicing.

Agreements are managed independently of customer accounts. You can create an agreement and then associate it with one or more accounts, with validity dates determining when the agreement and its account associations apply.

BRM also supports applying agreements in account hierarchies. An agreement associated with an account can apply to descendant accounts in the hierarchy. A directly associated agreement takes precedence over an inherited agreement, and BRM can use configured agreement ordering when multiple eligible agreements exist at the same account level.

Agreements are separate from BRM subscription terms. Subscription terms govern commitment, cancellation, and renewal terms for purchased offers and bundles, whereas agreements provide supported commercial overrides without changing the lifecycle of the underlying offers.

Note:

Detailed documentation for this feature is not yet available and will be published in a subsequent documentation update. For additional information or assistance, please contact Oracle Support.

Web Services Manager Can No Longer Be Deployed on Web Servers

Starting in BRM 16.26.0, Web Services Manager can no longer be deployed into an external web server, such as Oracle WebLogic Server or Tomcat Server.

For more information, see BRM Web Services Manager.

64-Bit Support for Package IDs

You can now use 64-bit values in the PIN_FLD_PACKAGE_ID field in all storable classes that contain this field. This enhancement enables BRM to process and store package IDs that exceed the signed 32-bit integer limit.

If you are upgrading to BRM 16.26.0, update any custom code that retrieves or sets PIN_FLD_PACKAGE_ID in a storable class to use a 64-bit data type.

For more information, see “Updating Custom Code for PIN_FLD_PACKAGE_ID” in BRM Installation Guide.

BRM No Longer Includes Sample TLS Wallets and Certificates

Starting with the 16.26.0 release, BRM no longer includes sample wallets containing sample TLS certificates. You are responsible for managing the life cycles of the BRM server, client, and config wallets and must use customer-approved certificate authorities (CAs) and certificates for SSL/TLS.

BRM uses separate wallets for TLS and configuration data. The server wallet stores the TLS server certificate, the client wallet stores the trusted CA certificate used for TLS, and the config wallet stores configuration data such as passwords and the BRM root encryption key.

During a fresh installation, you provide the required server and client wallet locations and a password for the config wallet. During an upgrade, you provide information about the existing client wallet and the config wallet, along with the server wallet location when SSL/TLS is enabled.

For more information, see "Using Oracle Wallet" in BRM System Administrator's Guide.

BRM Now Supports OAuth 2.0 Authentication for Kafka Connections

BRM now supports OAuth 2.0 authentication for connections to Kafka brokers. BRM components that produce or consume Kafka messages, including dm_kafka, Event Stream Processor, and REST Services Manager, can use the SASL/OAUTHBEARER mechanism to authenticate with Kafka by using short-lived access tokens from a configured OAuth/OIDC identity provider.

OAuth 2.0 authentication is optional, allowing you to use token-based authentication for Kafka connections while retaining existing authentication options.

Note:

Detailed documentation for this feature is not yet available and will be published in a subsequent documentation update. For additional information or assistance, please contact Oracle Support.

Loading Externally Rated Events into BRM from Kafka

You can load externally rated events into BRM from Kafka. The BRM Event Stream Processor consumes rated event records from configured Kafka topics and transforms incoming payloads into the BRM event format by using configurable mappings.

For externally rated events, the Event Stream Processor enriches the mapped events with BRM-specific information required for processing, such as item type, tax code, general ledger ID (G/L ID), service and account information, sub-balance information, and invoice data. You can configure the enrichment sequence and add custom enrichment modules to populate additional BRM-specific information required by your implementation. The enrichment flow is configurable, ordered, and extensible.

After mapping and enrichment, the Event Stream Processor commits the events to the BRM database for processing by Rated Event Manager. The Event Stream Processor supports configurable Kafka topics and consumer settings and includes deployment configuration for cloud native and on-premises environments.

For more information, see "Processing Rated Events for Loading Using Kafka" in BRM Loading Rated Events.

Loading ECE-Rated Events from Kafka in JSON Format

You can now load ECE-rated events into BRM from Kafka in JSON format. The BRM Event Stream Processor consumes rated event records from configured Kafka topics, transforms the incoming payload into the BRM event format using a configurable mapper, and commits the mapped events to the BRM database for processing by Rated Event Manager.

This functionality provides a Kafka-based integration path for processing ECE-rated events. The Event Stream Processor supports configurable Kafka topics and consumer settings, and the solution includes deployment configuration for both cloud native and on-premises environments.

For more information, see BRM Loading Rated Events.

Discount Evaluation Using Rule Manager

BRM now supports rule-based discount evaluation when multiple discounts are candidates for the same customer during overlapping validity periods. Rule Manager uses configurable business rules to evaluate candidate discounts, identify qualifying discounts, and determine their corresponding balance impacts.

The discount evaluation framework supports discount-combination matrix processing, multistage overlap determination, priority rules, prerequisite validation, and configurable evaluation and application sequences. Depending on the configured rules, Rule Manager can qualify multiple discounts or select a single winning discount. In a multistep evaluation, each step filters the candidate discounts and passes the remaining discounts to the next step. When an amount-based comparison is required, Rule Manager can use discount balance impacts to identify the winning discounts.

When the RuleManagerDiscounting business parameter is enabled, BRM calls the PCM_OP_SUBSCRIPTION_RULE_MANAGER wrapper opcode during discount event rating. The wrapper opcode calls Rule Manager, which uses PCM_OP_RULE_MANAGER_EVALUATE_RULES to evaluate the candidate discounts. Rule Manager then returns the balance impacts for the qualifying discounts to BRM.

When RuleManagerDiscounting is not enabled, BRM uses the existing discount evaluation flow.

You can modify discount decision logic and the sequences for evaluating and applying discounts by updating configuration and rule definitions without changing the core rule-execution framework.

Note:

Detailed documentation for this feature is not yet available and will be published in a subsequent documentation update. For additional information or assistance, please contact Oracle Support.

BRM Now Supports Billing Simulation

BRM 16.26.0 introduces billing simulation for recalculating customer charges using alternative rate plans and discounts without changing the original billed data. Before running a simulation, you can evaluate whether an account and billing period are eligible for simulation based on configured business rules.

BRM supports both synchronous simulations for immediate processing and asynchronous simulations that you can register for background processing. Simulations can provide summary-level billing results or detailed event-level results, depending on the requested simulation mode. BRM stores simulation requests and calculated results for use by billing-analysis and adjustment workflows.

Note:

Detailed documentation for this feature is not yet available and will be published in a subsequent documentation update. For additional information or assistance, please contact Oracle Support.

BRM REST Services Manager Now Supports External Identifiers for TMF APIs

BRM REST Services Manager now supports external identifiers for supported TM Forum (TMF) APIs. For supported requests, you can use identifiers assigned by external systems instead of BRM POIDs. This enhancement simplifies integrations when an external system assigns identifiers to accounts and related entities.

This enhancement applies to the following TMF APIs:

TMF 635
TMF 637
TMF 654
TMF 666
TMF 670

For more information, see REST Services Manager API for Billing and Revenue Management.

BRM REST Services Manager API Supports Special Rating and Sharing Groups

BRM REST Services Manager extends TMF 637 Product Inventory Management to support BRM-specific special rating and sharing group scenarios that the TMF 637 specification does not define.

You can use TMF 637 extensions to manage special rating scenarios such as Friends and Family and closed user groups (CUGs). In BRM, special rating lists, also known as Extended Rating Attributes (ERAs), associate customer-specific rating information with products and use that information during rating.

The TMF 637 extensions also support discount sharing. You can define the resources that a sharing group shares and manage the products or services that participate in the group.

Note:

Detailed documentation for this feature is not yet available and will be published in a subsequent documentation update. For additional information or assistance, please contact Oracle Support.

Enhanced TMF 635 Usage Management API

BRM REST Services Manager enhances support for the TMF 635 Usage Management API. You can retrieve billed and unbilled usage for a service and retrieve or search billed and unbilled usage events for billing profiles and services.

The API provides usage event details such as charges, discounts, and noncurrency resource impacts. You can also search for usage events by criteria such as event information, date ranges, and charge amount ranges.

These enhancements help external care applications retrieve and analyze detailed billed and unbilled usage information through the TMF 635 Usage Management API.

For more information, see REST API Reference for Billing and Revenue Management.

Enhanced TMF 654 Prepay Balance Management API Support

BRM REST Services Manager now provides enhanced support for the TMF 654 Prepay Balance Management API. The enhancements improve integration with customer care and other external applications that use their own identifiers instead of BRM POIDs.

BRM REST Services Manager now supports external identifiers for selected account, bill structure, and service references in the TMF 654 API. A new billStructure.id query parameter lets you use a bill structure external identifier with supported Prepay Balance Management operations. BRM continues to support billingCycleSpecification.id for backward compatibility.

BRM REST Services Manager also provides selected adjustment information, including the adjustment number, tax treatment, and bill and bill item references. This support reduces the need for BRM REST Services Manager SDK extensions.

For more information, see REST API Reference for Billing and Revenue Management.

Enhanced TMF 666 Account Management API Support

BRM 16.26.0 extends the TMF 666 Account Management functionality introduced in BRM 15.2. The BRM REST Services Manager API provides additional support for creating and updating billing accounts, account hierarchies, billing information, profiles, tax information, balances, and credit limits.

The API supports profile information during account creation and lets you establish parent-child relationships from the parent account in account hierarchy scenarios. PATCH operations update supported header-level attributes and billing profile or bill unit information without requiring the default, primary, or service bill unit to appear at a fixed position.

Account and billing hierarchy processing distinguishes the appropriate parent bill information from accounts-receivable (AR) bill information when maintaining hierarchy relationships. TMF 666 account operations also support VAT certificate information during account creation and update, the TMF account balance attribute, and 0th-level credit limit information.

For more information, see REST API Reference for Billing and Revenue Management.

Enhanced TMF 670 Payment Method Management

BRM REST Services Manager expands its existing TMF 670 Payment Method Management support. You can create additional payment-method types, including credit card, tokenized card, direct debit, invoice, check, and cash, and partially update existing payment methods.

BRM also provides expanded payment-method lifecycle information and search capabilities, generates notifications when payment methods change, and tracks payment-method events that external master systems send.

For more information, see REST API Reference for Billing and Revenue Management.

AI-Based Classification with Multiple Outputs

You can use AI-based classification in Oracle Monetization Suite to generate multiple related predictions that require multiple classification results. The release 16.26.0 sample demonstrates next best offer (NBO) recommendations using BRM and Siebel data.

In the sample workflow, BRM data services collect and prepare customer and purchase data from Siebel and usage data from BRM. Training services use the collected data to train multi-head Deep Neural Network (DNN) models. Prediction services generate multiple related predictions, such as a recommended charge or product offer and a discount offer.

Oracle Monetization Suite provides a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that runs alongside the BRM REST service. AI agents that support MCP can use the server to request predictions from the prediction service. You can add tools to the MCP server to extend its capabilities.

For more information, see "Configuring Multiple Data Sources" in BRM AI Deployment and Integration Guide.

AI-Based Anomaly Detection for Operational Metrics

You can now use AI-based anomaly detection in Oracle Monetization Suite to identify anomalies in operational metrics across systems. These metrics include ECS task backlog, BRM opcode errors, and BRS latency. The machine learning workflow collects historical Prometheus metrics and trains an XGBoost model to classify system states. When you request a prediction, the service retrieves metrics for the specified time window and returns the predicted system state and class probabilities. You can configure the metrics that the service analyzes to detect growing ECS task backlogs, increased errors, and latency degradation. The service can also identify patterns that may indicate an outage.

For more information, see "Collecting Metrics for Anomaly Detection" in BRM AI Deployment and Integration Guide.

2 New Features in BRM