Many schools are upgrading their campus network.“Costing system”As a small item in the procurement list, it's actually used to get all over the place. Some of my projects I've been approached have been caused by an error in the selection of the system for billing and some by having a well-planned early complaint with almost zero complaints. The campus network billing system is not just a software package, but an infrastructure that binds authentication, bandwidth, account number systems, financial process depth.
The relationship between the billing system and the certification system, first of all.
Many schools start to confuse these two things. The certification system solves them.“Who are you and if you can get in the net?”The system of billing.“How much do you use, what fees you charge, how much?”They can be a system or they can be deployed separately. Small networks can work with integration programs, but campuses above medium are advised to understand each other separately.
Why? Because authentication is the first touch of users, and stability is very high; the billing involves tactics, bills, statements, logic, and frequent changes. Tie them together, they are completely broken up as soon as they are upgraded; separate, the certification layer can be stable and the billing level flexible.
I saw a school, certified and billed, bugd with the billing module, with the whole network certified, students couldn't access the net, complaints were broken. Then it was turned into an uncoupled structure, certified to take an independent engine, paid to go backstage strategy, and stability went up one step immediately.
The billing strategy is not.“By Flow”Or...“Long in time.”It's so simple.
The core of the campus network billing system is not bookkeeping, but strategic control. Different user groups have different strategies.
The student dormitory is fair and manageable. You can't have a student with a hot spot, the whole floor follows the card. It's more reasonable in practice to combine bandwidth with long hours than pure traffic. Why? Because students use continuous connections, not one-time downloads.
The core of the curriculum is to ensure key business.“That's enough speed.”Yes.“Minimum security is enough.”. The billing system should be able to connect with Qos, leaving a dedicated access route for key operations.
The system is designed to support ad hoc strategy adjustments and cannot be charged in a rigid manner at uniform standards.
I helped a school to sort out the strategy, which was a one-size-fits-all charge, and as a result, teachers were cut off from doing research and students were given no limits on video. The number of complaints fell 70% by region + identity combinations, classroom and office floor bandwidth, and accommodation elasticity.
The account system is connected. It's the most headacheing thing in the future.
The campus network billing system is not isolated, but it is linked to the school’s uniform identity certification.
The ideal state is: registration of students, automatic system opening of network accounts; graduation, automatic write-off.
The billing system supports standard interfaces (Radius, LDAP, REST API) that can be connected to the school identification platform. Without this, later transportation costs are high.
I've seen one of the most exaggerating schools, where information teachers manually record and export 34,000 account changes, pure human capacity. Then they change their system to support automatic synchronization, which turns into a system running, and teachers just have to deal with anomalies.
Financial statements and reconciliations, not to wait for audit
If the school is a fee-based model, the financial functionality of the system must be tested in advance.
One project I've been working on, with no problems with the system for six months, ended year-end audit and found that bills were not matched to actual fees. The reason was that the system supported multiple preferential policies, but some combinations of financial rules were not allowed. The system was unlimited, operating teachers were unaware, and tens of thousands of dollars were missing.
The solution is not to change the system, but to impose conditions on a costing strategy that does not allow a combination of non-compliant financial rules to be effective.
Look not only at the functional list when selecting a pattern, but also at the real running environment
The manufacturer shows that the function is beautiful. You ask: What are the conditions for opening this function? Does it affect performance? Is wrong configuration affecting all the web-based messages?
Like what?“Cost by application”This function, which sounds advanced, can be charged separately for micro-letters, tremors, and Internet classes. But you know, it requires DPI support, requires equipment performance and involves user privacy compliance. Not all scenarios are suitable.
Like what?“Real-time bills”The user has a good experience, but the database is under pressure. If there are over 10,000 users in schools, the frequency of real-time billings for database queries is specially optimized, otherwise the user checks the bills and the system is carded.
The selections are accompanied by a few real questions: 5,000 people are online at the same time, and what is the system response time?
These are the real points that affect the use experience, compared to“Support not supported IPv6”This basic function is much more important.
The traffic monitor detected problems before the user.
When the campus network billing system is online, the point of the maintenance is not.“Make sure it doesn't.”But...“Find and solve problems before users perceive them.”。
Effective monitoring should include: bill engine health, database response time, bill generation success rate, certification success rate, and alarms for unusual accounts. These indicators must be on dashboards, and the informing teacher will see if there are problems today every day.
I suggest that we set up a multi-level alarm: A normal logbook, serious mail, and major text messages. Don't send all the questions to the air, or the alarm will turn into wolves.
There's also a practical technique: set up in the billing system“Experience Account”, which is used to check in, authenticate and test network connectivity on a regular basis. This is much more useful than user complaints like passive.
Let's wrap it up.
The campus network billing system is selected, looking at structure coupling, then strategy flexibility, turn-on openness and finally transport-dimensional ease. What's on the list of functions doesn't mean you can use it well, but what runs through the presentation does not mean that there are no problems after being online.
The best test is to find a school of your size, network structure, and ask them how they've been able to solve their problems for years. Real-life experience is worth more than the manufacturer's white paper.
The article is long, because the billing system is not really a single word or two. It looks like a software system, and it's actually about the running logic of the entire campus network.
Next I will write about the billing system and technical interface with the certification system, including the Radius protocol configuration, Portal page customization, multi-operator docking, etc. practical elements. Interested teachers can look into it.