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Billing feature helps you keep a tab on resource usage and takes the bandwidth monitoring one step ahead - Accounting. It makes easy to understand the reports in terms of cost incurred. Internally, organizations can use this feature for department-wise billing. Also Internet Service Providers can use this to automatically generate reports for their customers.
Billing can be accessed from NetFlow, under Admin
Operations.
The "Bill Plan List" tab lets you create a
new bill plan. To create a bill plan, click on the "Add Plan" tab.
The Fields and their description are given below.
Enter Billing Details
Field | Description |
---|---|
Bill Plan |
Enter the name you wish to assign for this bill plan |
Bill Plan Description* | Describe the plan for detailed understanding and for future reference |
Base Speed |
Enter the base speed of the connection in bps (bits per second) |
Base Cost | Select the currency from the drop-down box and enter the cost |
Additional Speed* | Enter the additional speed of the connection in bps |
Additional Cost* | Enter the cost for additional usage |
95th Percentile Calculation |
Select one of the two options from the drop-down box. Selecting "In & Out merge" will merge the In and Out values and calculate the 95 percentile value. Selecting "In & Out separate" will calculate 95th percentile value of IN and 95th percentile value of OUT separately and the higher of the two is considered. This is calculated using 5 minutes average data points. For better understanding, see the example. |
Billing Period |
Lets you select the option as quarterly or monthly. Incase you select the billing plan as quarterly, the bill will be generated quartely on the dateyou specify in the "Bill generation date" option. Incase you select the billing plan as monthly, the bill will be generated on a monthly basis on the date you specify in the "Bill generation date" option. |
Bill Generation Date |
Enter the date on which you want the bill to be generated either on monthly basis or quartely basis. |
Associated To
This has the list of Routers/interfaces and IP groups. You can
select the interfaces and/or the IP groups that is associated with this
plan.
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Once an Interface/IP Group is added to one bill plan, the specific interface/IP Groups does not get displayed while creating other bill plans |
Email ID To Send Reports
Enter the mail ID/IDs to which the generated Bill report needs
to be sent. Multiple mail IDs should be separated by comma ","
IN & OUT MERGE:
inbound = [0.139 0.653 0.201 0.116 0.084 0.032 0.047 0.185 0.198 0.203 0.276 0.370 0.971 0.233 0.218 0.182 0.169 0.126 0.131 0.157]
Inbound and Outbound merge
Sorted_In & Out= [3.988 1.435 1.427 1.385 1.347 1.265 1.248 1.229 1.221 1.013 1.002 0.992 0.971 0.940 0.896 0.874 0.689 0.653 0.523 0.438 0.370 0.347 0.231 0.276 0.233 0.218 0.203 0.201 0.198 0.185 0.182 0.169 0.157 0.139 0.131 0.126 0.116 0.084 0.047 0.032]
Sorted In and Out contains set contains 40 samples--5% of 40 is 2, so discarding the top 5% means we must discard the top two samples from the data set. We are now left with:
Sorted_In & Out= [1.427 1.385 1.347 1.265 1.248 1.229 1.221 1.013 1.002 0.992 0.971 0.940 0.896 0.874 0.689 0.653 0.523 0.438 0.370 0.347 0.231 0.276 0.233 0.218 0.203 0.201 0.198 0.185 0.182 0.169 0.157 0.139 0.131 0.126 0.116 0.084 0.047 0.032]
The highest sample from remaining data set is the 95th percentile value for the originating set. So we obtain the following value:
95th_in & out = 1.427 Mbps
IN & OUT SEPERATE:
inbound = [0.139 0.653 0.201 0.116 0.084 0.032 0.047 0.185 0.198 0.203 0.276 0.370 0.971 0.233 0.218 0.182 0.169 0.126 0.131 0.157]
outbound = [1.347 1.435 1.229 0.523 0.438 0.231 0.347 0.689 0.940 1.248 1.385 1.427 3.988 1.265 1.221 1.013 0.992 0.874 0.896 1.002]
After sorting, we obtain:
sorted_in = [0.971 0.653 0.370 0.276 0.233 0.218 0.203 0.201 0.198 0.185 0.182 0.169 0.157 0.139 0.131 0.126 0.116 0.084 0.047 0.032]
sorted_out = [3.988 1.435 1.427 1.385 1.347 1.265 1.248 1.229 1.221 1.013 1.002 0.992 0.940 0.896 0.874 0.689 0.523 0.438 0.347 0.231]
Each sample set contains 20 samples--5% of 20 is 1, so discarding the top 5% means we must discard the top sample from each data set. We are now left with:
remaining_in = [0.653 0.370 0.276 0.233 0.218 0.203 0.201 0.198 0.185 0.182 0.169 0.157 0.139 0.131 0.126 0.116 0.084 0.047 0.032]
remaining_out = [1.435 1.427 1.385 1.347 1.265 1.248 1.229 1.221 1.013 1.002 0.992 0.940 0.896 0.874 0.689 0.523 0.438 0.347 0.231]
The highest sample from each remaining data set is the 95th percentile value for the originating set. So, for each set, above, we obtain the following values:
95th_in = 0.653 Mbps
95th_out = 1.435 Mbps
The higher of the two computed 95th percentile values becomes the final 95th percentile value used for billing:
95th percentile = 1.435 Mbps
Adding an interface/IP group
An interface/IP group can be added during any point of the
billing cycle. The bill will be generated for this interface/IP group
during the mentioned billing date for the billing plan.
When an Intereface/IP group is removed from a bill plan, the
bill for that interface is generated at the same instant.
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"Billing period" and "Bill generation date" CANNOT be changed. When the interfaces/ IP groups are unmanaged/ deleted, bill is generated for the interface or IP groups at that instant. If you modify the cost in the bill plan, It will be effected from the next billing cycle and NOT at that instant. |
Available plans
You can view all the plans or any one plan by selecting the suitable option from the drop-down box. By default the "report" page shows only the recent report of all the bill plans. If you wan to view all the generated reports for a particular bill plane, select the bill plan from the dropdown box, next to "available plans". The reports are arranged with the most recent report on top.By clicking on "show details" a pop up window opens, wherein you can view a speed-time graph.This shows all the bills generated for the particular interface.The report in can be generated in PDF format by clicking on "PDF" and you can view the data at 5 minutes interval by clicking on the "Data points"
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