Installing Convergent Charging

The first step for the installation of SAP Convergent Charging is obtaining the latest version of the installation guide from the help portal. Open an internet browser and visit the SAP Convergent Charging area in the help portal via http://help.sap.com/.

Go to the Implement section, as pictured earlier, and open the "Installation and Maintenance Guide" and familiarize yourself with the guide.

SAP Convergent Charging is made up with the following set of Java-based software components that you can install to perform your business operations.

You have to plan your installation in advance, especially which underlying database you would like to use. For further information about the different software components, refer to the Product Availability Matrix (PAM) or to the Architecture section of the SAP Convergent Charging Application Help documentation.

The table lists various Java-based software components within an SAP Convergent Charging system, categorized by their function:

1. Server Systems are the back-end components responsible for processing and managing charging-related tasks. These include:

   Core Server

   This is the central component that handles all charging-related logic, including rating, charging, and balance management.

   Diameter Server

   This component handles communication with external systems using the Diameter protocol, which is commonly used in telecommunications for real-time charging and policy control.

   Import/Export Connector

   IEC allows you to:

   • Transfer data between SAP Convergent Charging systems and external systems
     • Import data from the SAP Convergent Charging system.
     • Export data to the SAP Convergent Charging system.
   • Modify and consolidate transferred data whatever the type of the transfer mode
     • Collect data from files or external databases
     • Extract advanced lines from files, line by line, or extract all the lines which are inserted between two specific lines
     • Modify advanced character strings such as CSV parsing
     • Generate chargeable items from collected data
     • Send XML API requests to SAP Convergent Charging Core Server
     • Execute SQL requests
     • Process XML and XSL operations

   Tomcat Server

   This is a Java servlet container that hosts the web-based user interface called cockpit.

2. User Interfaces are the front-end components that users interact with to manage and monitor the system. These include:

   Core Tool

   In an SAP Convergent Charging environment, the main functions of the Core Tool user interface are the following:

   • Configuration during the implementation phase:
     • Configurations of business data or technical data available for the complete system
     • Configurations of the master data related to the pricing of a customer service: You set up the pricing logic of its customer services
     • Configurations of the master data related to end customers of a service provider in a B2B environment with few subscriber data
     • Dummy configurations of the master data related to the end customers of a service provider for test or demo purposes
   • Operations during the production operation phase:
     • Master data (pricing catalogs) and business data maintenance
     • Technical data maintenance (users)
     • Rerating operations
     • Auditing

   Cat Tool

   The Cat Tool is used to manage the integration scenarios of the Import/Export Connector.

   Cockpit

   This is an intuitive web application and a central tool that enables a quick and efficient management of the SAP Convergent Charging systems and data. It is a role-based and personalized work center for pricing specialists, system administrators, and support specialists.

   Admin+

   Admin+ is a user interface of SAP Convergent Charging. It is a console program that allows you to manage local or remote instances of the SAP Convergent Charging Core Server system and change their configuration parameters. The console program runs in interactive mode to get commands/arguments and to give you results or prompts for new options. It provides an IT administrator with some troubleshooting tools to resolve problems about SAP Convergent Charging systems, data refreshing, and SAP Convergent Charging users.

   Setup Tool

   It is a command line program that allows you to setup the SAP Convergent Charging Core Server system by directly modifying its back-end database (SAP Convergent Charging Core Database).

   Config Tool

   Config Tool is a user interface of SAP Convergent Charging. It is a command line program that allows you to quickly configure or transport a large subset of system parameters in the SAP Convergent Charging Core Server system. A complete or partial SAP Convergent Charging system restart is necessary to take the changes into account.

3. Databases are the data storage components that store the system's data. These include:

   Core Database

   SAP Convergent Charging Core Database is a back-end database of SAP Convergent Charging Core Server, the main component of the SAP Convergent Charging software product.

   SAP Convergent Charging Core Database contains the different data related to the business objects handled by SAP Convergent Charging Core Server, such as master data (pricing catalogs of digital services and customer master data like provider contracts with allowances), business and custom data, business processing data and some technical data of SAP Convergent Charging. To ensure performances, the SAP Convergent Charging Core Server system must perform a huge number of connections and transactions (with low latency) to this database. As a consequence, SAP highly recommends that you configure the Core database as an On-Line Transaction Processing (OLTP) database to execute real-time processes.

   IEC Database

   SAP Convergent Charging IEC Database is the back-end database of SAP Convergent Charging Import/Export Connector (IEC) of the SAP Convergent Charging software product.

   It contains transactional data related to the business managed by an import/export connector (IEC) application customized in the system landscape:

   Service consumption information (customer service usage) in the form of extended chargeable items (XCIs) exported by an IEC application.

In summary, the table provides a high-level overview of the different Java-based components within an SAP Convergent Charging system and their respective roles in enabling real-time charging and billing functionalities.

The installation procedure consists of the following four general steps:

1. Retrieve necessary materials

   The first step of this installation scenario consists in retrieving the different materials that are necessary to deploy the expected SAP Convergent Charging elements. Execute the following common procedures, considering the associated recommendations:

   • Defining your landscape.
   • Choosing System IDs.
   • Downloading the Installation media.
   • Downloading the JCE Jurisdiction Policy Files Archive.
2. Setting up a new host for a landscape

   The second step of the installation scenario consists in using the Setting up a new host for a landscape procedure to set up the system of the Global Host before deploying the instances of the Core Server system.

3. Prepare the database

   The third step of this installation scenario consists in preparing the database using the dedicated Preparing the SQL Server Core Database procedure.

4. Deploy the expected SAP Convergent Charging elements

   The last step of this installation scenario consists in deploying the expected SAP Convergent Charging elements using the Installing a Core Server on a mono-host landscape procedure. You can consider this as an entry point for installing:

   • A stand-alone landscape, that is not integrated with any third-party system and does not provide the possibility to work with billable items or consumption items.
   • A landscape that is integrated with the SAP Convergent Invoicing system and provides the possibility to work with billable items and/or consumption items.

When these four steps have been successfully executed, you can use the following procedures:

• Starting and stopping the servers, to manage your installed instances.
• Testing a landscape basically, to ensure that your landscape is properly working.

All the procedures are described in the "Installation and Maintenance Guide".

Obtain the latest version of the administration guide from the help portal. Open an internet browser and visit the SAP Convergent Charging area in the help portal via http://help.sap.com/cc.

Go to the Operate section and open the Administration Guide, as pictured earlier, and familiarize yourself with the guide. The guide covers topics around the management of SAP Convergent Charging like:

A whole chapter deals with the aspects of monitoring of SAP Convergent Charging.

Security aspects are covered by an own document called Security Guide, which is accessible in the Operate section of the help portal as well. This guide describes all available user roles with a detailed list of authorized functions per role.

The remaining part of this lesson discusses the typical error analysis activities, which a developer could perform in an integrated BRIM scenario.