A lot of people think that the network traffic billing system is..."Put a gateway, set a unit price, collect money on the line."The real project, the writing hall and the estates both look like"Building"The scenario, where the billing requirements vary greatly, will be problematic at a later stage if the same package is used.
Flow models for the writing buildings: stable, predictable and slotting charges
The typical A-class writing building, where tenants are dominated by business offices. There are several salient features of the flow model: working day (900-18:00) is a peak period, lunch break (12-12-14:00) is slightly lower and traffic is close to zero at night and weekends. The overall flow curve is very regular, with monthly fluctuations not exceeding 15%.
The most appropriate way to charge this is"Bandwidth + Basic Flow Pack". Each tenant selects a bandwidth slot (e.g. 50M/100M/200M) based on the contractual agreement, each containing a certain amount of base traffic, exceeding part by volume or unlimited speed limit.
The cost-accounting system for the writing building has several immediate features: first, billing cycles must be aligned with the rental cycle. Many of the rental costs are charged quarterly and network fees are paid quarterly. Second, tenants change retroactively."Free public area plus office area fees"Mixed mode of the——The public areas network of the lobby, conference rooms and other public areas is usually included in property fees and cannot be charged to tenants separately.
In practice, the most easy problem with the network of writing buildings is not arithmetic logic but rather a question."Flooring and VLAN corresponding"Some buildings have a network of VLANs, one broadcast area per floor. The system needs to correctly identify the tenants and billing strategies for each VLAN. If no pre-existing network planning is in place, it will be useless if VLAN divides them up.——The data source is wrong.
Flow models for industrial parks: blend, volatilization, and flexible strategy
A typical industrial park may be a software company (VPN+ remote development, high up demand), an electric power company (live + short video uploading, large and continuous), a live broadcast base (high-level push, demanding steady upswing and bandwidth), general manufacturing enterprises (required by traffic but demanding stability), or garden canteens and convenience stores (basic network access).
In this mixed scenario, it is not realistic to charge the flow-based charges uniformly. Software companies may run dozens of TB code syncs and data transmissions a month, receiving daily prices at standard traffic unit rates; electrical operators’ teams are broadcasting on live with large surges and do not have reasonable bandwidth charges.
The industrial park billing system needs support."Differential policy": different types of tenants bind different billing templates."High bandwidth + large traffic pack"The single price can be lower because of the volume but steady use; live-in companies are suitable."Guarantee bandwidth + excess by volume"The model, which controls costs while ensuring that the flow is not bad, is used by ordinary office enterprises with standard bandwidth plus traffic packages.
And more complicated, some industrial estates have."Shared office space"and"Single-room area"The difference. The space for shared office space is a flexible lease, three teams come today, two next week, and the billing system needs to be able to respond quickly to this change.——Better be able to do it."The opening of the building is a charge, the rent is a cut."。
Differences in technical requirements between the two scenarios and the system
From the point of view of technology realization, the cost-accounting systems for the writing buildings and industrial parks differ on several key points:
A writing building usually has dozens to hundreds of tenants, while several hundred to thousands online equipment are used to keep the billing system in order to handle it. Industrial parks may cover tens of thousands of square metres of the entire campus, hundreds of companies, thousands of employees, and a lot more requests for certification and billing.
The strategy is complex. The billing strategy for the writing building may be three or five templates, covering different space spaces. There may be dozens or dozens of models for industrial parks, with minor differences between tenants in industry, floors, and contractual terms.
The paper property needs a relatively simple statement: the renter’s usage, amounts due, and fees owed for this month.——These analytical class statements require better data export and visualization capabilities in the billing system or at least easy access to external BI tools.
Lessons from a practical case
Last year I followed up on a project where developers took a writing building and converted it to an industrial park. Before the renovation, this building was built using a standard writing building billing scheme.——The remodelling has been followed by the introduction of a live-to-live power provider and software development team, with the original costing option completely inapplicable.
The most painful problem is the flow of live teams. A medium-sized group, running four to six hours a day, could have been more than 500 GB. At the original unit price (0.1/GB), the cost of the network would be 10,000 per month, and the team would not approve it.
The costing strategy was subsequently re-engineered: a single template for the live team, which is available"Guarantee up-band 50M+ Total Flow Pack 5TB", exceeding the limit of 10 m without extra charge; software development team to go"100M bandwidth + open-ended traffic"The cost of the business package is spread to monthly rents; ordinary office continues with the original three-stage option.
After the adjustment, all parties accepted the new costing formula. But this process took almost two months.——The middle involved re-contracting each tenant, reconfiguring the system and producing three transitional bills. This time and manpower costs could have been avoided if a costing system that supported the differentiated strategy had been used from the outset.
Some key issues in the selection
Whether it is a writing building or an industrial park, the choice may ask suppliers to determine whether the scheme is appropriate: can this system set out completely different costing models for different groups? Can you support mid-month changes and convert them by day? How many of these are most supported online users? Is billing cycles self-defined (monthly/quarter/half-year)? Can raw flow data be exported for secondary analysis?
If the answers to these questions are yes, and if we go through a detailed configuration test with specific scenarios, it will basically be possible to judge whether this system is suitable for your building.