Re: ISP billing - data collection, correlation, and billing

[Michael Krygeris]

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 4:48 AM Lee Howard  wrote:

>
> Depending on the capability of the exporter, you don't need to export full
flow information. With Cisco's Flexible Netflow you can define the
aggregation in the flow cache you are monitoring. You are not required to
use a 7-tuple.
An aggregation could be something basic like this:
Source interface
Destination interface
Octets
Packets

This would give you SNMP equivalent for byte accounting on interfaces
without requiring full flow accounting IF you're not forced to do sampling
and IF you have flexible netflow.

Another much more recent method around SNMP (sorry SNMP, I'm over you) is
streaming telemetry, which is part of Netconf/YANG/OpenConfig.
This is more of a push method for these yang data models(the relevent one
here being snmp interfaces table).
It already exists on some Juniper and Cisco platforms.
Mike Krygeris


>
> On 7/14/17, 2:47 PM, "NANOG on behalf of Luke Guillory"
>  wrote:
>
> >On the HFC / CMTS side of things we have IPDR which I believe has some
> >open source collectors out there. I'm not sure that IPDR is used much
> >outside of the HFC world though.
>
> IPDR was my first thought as an alternative to SNMP. Is its accuracy
> comparable? It’s been included into TR-069, so it’s theoretically
> available to telcos, too. And usage-based billing is part of it’s purpose.
>
>
> Not sure I’d want to use NetFlow/IPFIX, since by nature it tracks flows,
> not bits, and I don’t want to record flows. But I’d be interested in
> hearing others’ experience.
>
>
> Lee
>
>
>
>

RE: ISP billing - data collection, correlation, and billing

[Sean Pedersen]

Flexible NetFlow is the best option for us. I haven’t seen a lot of products 
outside of open source that work with telemetry at the moment, and nothing that 
has billing functions. We’re far too lean to be able to rely on open source / 
devops at this point. That’s been a hard lesson to teach the company. 

 

It’s definitely on our internal roadmap, though.

 

From: Michael Krygeris [mailto:m...@krygerism.com] 
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2017 9:35 AM
To: Lee Howard ; Luke Guillory ; 
Sean Pedersen ; nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: ISP billing - data collection, correlation, and billing

 

 

On Sat, Jul 15, 2017 at 4:48 AM Lee Howard mailto:l...@asgard.org> > wrote:

 

Depending on the capability of the exporter, you don't need to export full flow 
information. With Cisco's Flexible Netflow you can define the aggregation in 
the flow cache you are monitoring. You are not required to use a 7-tuple.

An aggregation could be something basic like this:

Source interface

Destination interface 

Octets

Packets

 

This would give you SNMP equivalent for byte accounting on interfaces without 
requiring full flow accounting IF you're not forced to do sampling and IF you 
have flexible netflow.

 

Another much more recent method around SNMP (sorry SNMP, I'm over you) is 
streaming telemetry, which is part of Netconf/YANG/OpenConfig.

This is more of a push method for these yang data models(the relevent one here 
being snmp interfaces table).

It already exists on some Juniper and Cisco platforms.

Mike Krygeris

 



On 7/14/17, 2:47 PM, "NANOG on behalf of Luke Guillory"
mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org>  on behalf of 
lguill...@reservetele.com <mailto:lguill...@reservetele.com> > wrote:

>On the HFC / CMTS side of things we have IPDR which I believe has some
>open source collectors out there. I'm not sure that IPDR is used much
>outside of the HFC world though.

IPDR was my first thought as an alternative to SNMP. Is its accuracy
comparable? It’s been included into TR-069, so it’s theoretically
available to telcos, too. And usage-based billing is part of it’s purpose.


Not sure I’d want to use NetFlow/IPFIX, since by nature it tracks flows,
not bits, and I don’t want to record flows. But I’d be interested in
hearing others’ experience.


Lee

Re: ISP billing - data collection, correlation, and billing

[Jose Gerardo Perales Soto]

Hi, we use the same approach as you. When provisioning services they’re 
identified by a label in the interface description so data is collected and 
delivered to our billing systems.

Gerardo

El 14/07/17 13:43, "NANOG en nombre de Sean Pedersen"  escribió:

I went back a few years in the archives and found a few odd references, but
not much discussion. I'm curious what some other approaches are to
usage-based billing, both the practice of generating/correlating data and
the billing itself.



We bill based on use/95th percentile and our system is rudimentary on its
best day. We use SNMP and interface descriptions to generate data and
correlate it with customers. This works for the most part, but leaves a lot
to be desired.



Ours is one method, and I've seen others who use NetFlow data in a similar
fashion, with the assumption that the NetFlow data is correlated either via
IP address or source interface.



Most of the systems I've seen are full-fledged CRM, billing, and OSS, which
is a little overkill for us at the moment. I think we would have issues
trying to integrate such a multi-headed beast into our organization at this
time.



What methods do you use to collect and correlate data?

What systems, if any, do you use?



I'm a little in the dark as the billing/OSS side of things is outside of my
normal scope and would appreciate any recommendations.



Thanks!






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Re: ISP billing - data collection, correlation, and billing

[Luke Guillory]

To be honest we don't do usage billing so I've never used it. I'd like to think 
it is since it uses a verification between the collector and source.



Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 15, 2017, at 3:47 AM, Lee Howard 
mailto:l...@asgard.org>> wrote:




On 7/14/17, 2:47 PM, "NANOG on behalf of Luke Guillory"
mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org> on behalf of 
lguill...@reservetele.com> wrote:

On the HFC / CMTS side of things we have IPDR which I believe has some
open source collectors out there. I'm not sure that IPDR is used much
outside of the HFC world though.

IPDR was my first thought as an alternative to SNMP. Is its accuracy
comparable? It’s been included into TR-069, so it’s theoretically
available to telcos, too. And usage-based billing is part of it’s purpose.


Not sure I’d want to use NetFlow/IPFIX, since by nature it tracks flows,
not bits, and I don’t want to record flows. But I’d be interested in
hearing others’ experience.


Lee






Luke Guillory
Vice President – Technology and Innovation


[cid:image3856cc.JPG@d6320433.44ae2e87] 

Tel:985.536.1212
Fax:985.536.0300
Email:  lguill...@reservetele.com
Web:www.rtconline.com

Reserve Telecommunications
100 RTC Dr
Reserve, LA 70084





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Re: ISP billing - data collection, correlation, and billing

[Lee Howard]

On 7/14/17, 2:47 PM, "NANOG on behalf of Luke Guillory"
 wrote:

>On the HFC / CMTS side of things we have IPDR which I believe has some
>open source collectors out there. I'm not sure that IPDR is used much
>outside of the HFC world though.

IPDR was my first thought as an alternative to SNMP. Is its accuracy
comparable? It’s been included into TR-069, so it’s theoretically
available to telcos, too. And usage-based billing is part of it’s purpose.


Not sure I’d want to use NetFlow/IPFIX, since by nature it tracks flows,
not bits, and I don’t want to record flows. But I’d be interested in
hearing others’ experience.


Lee

RE: ISP billing - data collection, correlation, and billing

[Luke Guillory]

On the HFC / CMTS side of things we have IPDR which I believe has some open 
source collectors out there. I'm not sure that IPDR is used much outside of the 
HFC world though.







Luke Guillory
Vice President – Technology and Innovation

Tel:985.536.1212
Fax:985.536.0300
Email:  lguill...@reservetele.com

Reserve Telecommunications
100 RTC Dr
Reserve, LA 70084

_

Disclaimer:
The information transmitted, including attachments, is intended only for the 
person(s) or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential 
and/or privileged material which should not disseminate, distribute or be 
copied. Please notify Luke Guillory immediately by e-mail if you have received 
this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail 
transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information 
could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or 
contain viruses. Luke Guillory therefore does not accept liability for any 
errors or omissions in the contents of this message, which arise as a result of 
e-mail transmission. .

-Original Message-
From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Sean Pedersen
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2017 1:41 PM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: ISP billing - data collection, correlation, and billing

I went back a few years in the archives and found a few odd references, but not 
much discussion. I'm curious what some other approaches are to usage-based 
billing, both the practice of generating/correlating data and the billing 
itself.



We bill based on use/95th percentile and our system is rudimentary on its best 
day. We use SNMP and interface descriptions to generate data and correlate it 
with customers. This works for the most part, but leaves a lot to be desired.



Ours is one method, and I've seen others who use NetFlow data in a similar 
fashion, with the assumption that the NetFlow data is correlated either via IP 
address or source interface.



Most of the systems I've seen are full-fledged CRM, billing, and OSS, which is 
a little overkill for us at the moment. I think we would have issues trying to 
integrate such a multi-headed beast into our organization at this time.



What methods do you use to collect and correlate data?

What systems, if any, do you use?



I'm a little in the dark as the billing/OSS side of things is outside of my 
normal scope and would appreciate any recommendations.



Thanks!