Revenue management system and method

• US 8,116,326 B2
• Filed: 06/28/2006
• Issued: 02/14/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Rockel, Alexander, Krishnamoorthy, Jayaprakash, Labuda, David S., Guionnet, Jerome, Levy, David, Velcich, Tony
• Primary Examiner(s): SOL, ANTHONY M
• Application Number:
  US11/478,558
• Publication Number:
  US 20070091874A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,057 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 370/401
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/60 Business processes related to postal services shipping G06Q10/083; franking apparatus G07B17/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1403 Architecture for metering, charging or billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1467 involving prepayment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0852 Delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0892 by using authentication-authorization-accounting [AAA] servers or protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8214 Data or packet based
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 17/00 Prepayment of wireline communication systems, wireless communication systems or telephone systems using a coded card to authorise calls from a telephone set H04M1/675
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/204 UMTS; GPRS
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/782 Data or packet based
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/24 Accounting or billing

Abstract

A revenue management system and method for telecommunication network use is disclosed. The revenue management system can be integrated with the internet protocol multimedia subsystem (IMS). The revenue management system and method can have a hardware and/or software revenue generation module or architecture, revenue capture module or architecture, revenue collection module or architecture, revenue analysis module or architecture, or combinations thereof.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled with and readable by the processor and having stored therein a sequence of instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to implement a revenue management system for a communications network, the revenue management system including a gateway layer coupled with the communications network, a revenue capture layer communicatively coupled with the gateway layer, and a database and storage layer communicatively coupled with the revenue capture layer,

wherein the gateway layer;

receives a request related to a communication on the communications network,

performs authentication of the request and authorization for services to support the communication based on the request,

converts the request to an event data record, and

forwards the event data record based on the services authorized and a type of the request, and

wherein the revenue capture layer includes a transactional in-memory object store including a read-only reference object cache of data objects from the database and storage layer, wherein the revenue capture layer;

receives the event data record from the gateway layer, and

routes the event data record to the transactional in-memory object store or the database and storage layer depending upon the type of the request and a configurable directory server consulted, wherein routing the event data record comprises routing real-time requests to the transactional in-memory object store and routing non-real-time requests to the database and storage layer.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the transactional in-memory object store includes a reference object cache of database objects from the database and storage layer.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the reference object cache comprises customer account records used for read-only reference during real-time processes.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the request related to the communication on the communications network comprises an authentication and authorization request and the real-time processes comprise authentication and authorization processes.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the transactional in-memory object store includes a data migratory object and wherein the data migratory object fills the reference object cache from a database of the database and storage layer.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the transactional in-memory object store includes a transient object store and wherein the transient object store includes temporary objects used only by the transactional in-memory object store.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the temporary objects include active-session objects.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the temporary objects further include resource-reservation objects.

9. A method for managing revenue from services of a communication network, the method comprising:

receiving at a gateway layer of a revenue management system a request related to a communication on the communications network;

performing by the gateway layer of the revenue management system authentication of the request and authorization for services to support the communication based on the request;

converting the request to an event data record by the gateway layer of the revenue management system;

forwarding the event data record from the gateway layer of the revenue management system based on the services authorized and a type of the request;

receiving the event data record at a transactional in-memory object store from the gateway layer, wherein a revenue capture layer includes the transactional in-memory object store including a read-only reference object cache of data objects from the database and storage layer; and

routing the event data record to the transactional in-memory object store or the database and storage layer by the transactional in-memory object store by the revenue capture layer depending upon the type of the request and a configurable directory server consulted, wherein routing the event data record comprises routing real-time requests to the transactional in-memory object store and routing non-real-time requests to the database and storage layer.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the transactional in-memory object store includes a reference object cache of database objects from the database and storage layer.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the reference object cache comprises customer account records used for read-only reference during real-time processes.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the request related to the communication on the communications network comprises an authentication and authorization request and the real-time processes comprise authentication and authorization processes.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the transactional in-memory object store includes a data migratory object and wherein the data migratory object fills the reference object cache from a database of the database and storage layer.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the transactional in-memory object store includes a transient object store and wherein the transient object store includes temporary objects used only by the transactional in-memory object store.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the temporary objects include active-session objects.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the temporary objects further include resource-reservation objects.