A brief introduction to BRM and architecture
- by Yani Miguel
Oracle Communications Billing and
Revenue Management (Oracle BRM) is the telcos industry´s leading
solution intended for communications service providers. This post encourages to know BRM starting with the basics.
History
Portal was a billing and revenue
managament solution to communications industry created by Portal
Software. In 2006 Oracle acquired Portal Software and the solution
was renamed BRM. Today Oracle BRM is the first end-to-end packaged
enterprise software suite for the communications industry, however
BRM is just one more product in the catalog of OSS solutions that
Oracle offers.
BRM can bill and manage all
communications services including wireline, wireless, broadband,
cable, voice over IP, IPTV, music, and video.
BRM Architecture
BRM´s architecture consists of 4
layers or tiers. Through these layers are the data, bussines logic
and interfaces to connect graphical client tools.Application tier
This layer provides GUI client tools
enabling communication to other layers through open APIs. Some BRM
client applications are:
Customer Center
Pricing Center
Universal Event Loader
Web Server
BRM Billing Application
Collections Center
Permissioning Center
Furthermore, this layer is where are
provided real-time external events.
Bussines Process Tier
Although all layers are equally
important, I think it deserves more atention because in this tier BRM
functionality is implemented.
All functions that give life to BRM are in this layer coded in C language called Opcodes (System Processes in the image). Any changes or additional functionality should be made here, so when we try to customize the product, we will most of the time programming in this layer (Business Policies in the image).Bussines Process Tier Features:
Implements Portal system functionalityValidates data from the application
tierModifies Portal behavior through
business policies. Business policies can by customized.Triggers external systems using event
notification.
Object Tier
This layer is responsible for transfer
the BRM requests into database language and translate BRM requests
into external system requests. Without it, the business logic (data
from Bussines Process Tier) could not be understood by the relational
database.
Data tier
Data tier is
responsable for the storage of BRM database and other external
systems databases. External systems include credit card, tax, and
directory servers.
Finally, It's important to note that BRM is designed to easily integrate with the following solutions:AIA 2.4 Siebel CRM E-Business Suite - G/L onlyCommunications Services Gatekeeper Oracle BI Publisher. Personally, I think that BRM could improve migrating client-server architecture to a fully web platform that works with Oracle Middleware like any product of the Fusion Middleware family. Hopefully there are already initiatives in this area.
