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Cisco Prime Network 4.0 User Guide
OL-29343-01
Chapter 25 Monitoring Mobile Technologies
Working with Active Charging Service
Working with Active Charging Service
Enhanced Charging Service (ECS), also known as Active Charging Service (ACS), is an in-line service,
which is integrated within the platform and provides mobile operators the ability to offer tiered, detailed,
and itemized billing to subscribers. Data packets flow through the ECS subsystem and relevant actions
are performed based on the configured rules. Charging records (xCDRs) will be generated and forwarded
to ESS or billing systems for prepaid and post paid billing.
The major components and functions of an ECS solution are given below.
Content Service Steering
Content Service Steering (CSS) enables directing selective subscriber traffic into the ECS subsystem.
CSS uses Access Control Lists (ACLs) to redirect selective subscriber traffic flows. ACLs control the
flow of packets into and out of the system. ACLs consist of rules (ACL rules) or filters that control the
action taken on packets matching the filter criteria.
ACLs are configurable on a per-context basis and apply to a subscriber through either a subscriber profile
(for PDSN) or an APN profile (for GGSN) in the destination context.
Protocol Analyzer
Protocol analyzer stack is responsible for analyzing the individual protocol fields during packet
inspection. The analyzer supports the following types of packet inspection:
• Shallow Packet Inspection—Inspection of the Layer 3 (IP header) and Layer 4 (for example, UDP
or TCP header) information.
• Deep Packet Inspection—Inspection of Layer 7 and above information. This functionality includes:
–
Detection of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) information at level 7 (example, HTTP)
–
Identification of true destination in the case of terminating proxies, where shallow packet
inspection only reveals the destination IP address/port number of a terminating proxy
Rule Definitions
Rule definitions (ruledefs) are user-defined expressions, based on protocol fields and protocol states,
which define what actions to take when specific field values are true.
Most important rule definitions are related to Routing and Charging as explained below:
QoS Class Background Indicates whether background traffic class of service is enabled or not.
QoS Class Interactive Indicates whether interactive traffic class of service is enabled or not.
QoS Class Streaming Indicates whether streaming traffic class of service is enabled or not.
QoS Class
Conversational
Indicates whether conversational traffic class of service is enabled or not.
Table 25-74 APN Profile Additional Characteristics (continued)
Field Description