Service Chain Management for Fee-Based Web Service Billing
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing mechanisms for interacting applications, such as Web services, face difficulties in incorporating fee-based services from third parties, particularly in tracking usage and determining corresponding fees, which is costly and complex, and users struggle to offer enhanced services based on other third-party fee-based services.
Innovation Solution
The Configurable Service Sequence Usage Facility (CSSUF) system allows applications to configure pricing terms for sequences of invocable services, enabling tracking and billing of fees to end users, by providing a metering service that uses application keys and user tokens to manage the usage and payment for multiple services in a sequence.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If applications directly incorporate third-party fee-based Web services, then service functionality is provided, but tracking usage and determining fees becomes costly and complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a service chain management system that acts as an intermediary between applications and third-party fee-based Web services. This intermediary automatically tracks usage of multiple services in a sequence, manages pricing terms, and handles fee determination and collection, thereby reducing the complexity that would otherwise fall on individual applications.
Solution Approach 2:
The service chain management system provides universal functionality for managing sequences of multiple invocable services. It can track usage, determine fees, and handle billing across different service providers and service types through a single unified system, eliminating the need for each application to implement custom tracking and billing logic for each service.
2Adaptability or versatility
If users offer enhanced services based on multiple third-party fee-based services, then service capabilities are improved, but implementation cost and difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The service chain is pre-configured with pricing terms and usage tracking rules before services are invoked. The service chain management system is set up in advance to know which services to call in sequence, how to track their usage, and how to calculate and collect fees, thereby simplifying the implementation for service providers.
Solution Approach 2:
The service chain management system serves as an intermediary that abstracts away the complexity of integrating multiple third-party services. Service providers can offer enhanced services by simply defining the service chain and pricing terms, while the intermediary handles the complex tasks of coordinating service invocations, tracking usage across multiple providers, and managing fee collection and allocation.
3Reliability
If manual tracking and billing mechanisms are used for service sequences, then fee allocation can be achieved, but the process becomes costly and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The service chain management system automatically and rapidly tracks usage and calculates fees in real-time or near-real-time as services are invoked, eliminating the slow manual processes. The system accelerates the entire billing process by using automated computation and electronic record-keeping, reducing both time and cost while maintaining accurate fee allocation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements automated feedback loops where usage data from each service invocation is immediately captured, fed into the pricing model, and used to update billing information. This continuous automated feedback ensures accurate fee allocation without manual intervention, reducing both time loss and costs associated with manual tracking and billing processes.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are described for facilitating use of sequences of invocable services in a configurable manner, including by providing a metering service that tracks the use of invocable services by other invocable services or applications. In at least some situations, the invocable services are fee-based Web services or other fee-based network-accessible services, and are made available by providers of the services for use by others in exchange for fees defined by the service providers. The described techniques facilitate use of a sequence of such invocable services by applications in a manner configured by the creators of the applications and providers of the services, including to allow the application creators to define pricing terms that will be used to determine fees that end users of the applications will be charged for use of the invocable services via the applications.