Billing Software Integrates RAD-Series RADIUS Server
When a global supplier of integrated billing and customer care services needed a flexible and scalable RADIUS Server billing solution to integrate with their platform, they turned to Interlink Networks. The billing company serves top companies in the telecommunications, Internet, financial services, and other industries worldwide. Their billing software produces more than 1 million individual invoices daily and supports more than 100 million service subscribers. |
The company’s Internet billing software supports the needs of next-generation service providers delivering high-value services and applications. The solution requirements were to offer service providers completely flexible and scalable RADIUS-based billing platforms providing either wholesale or retail billing and customer care services. Interlink Networks provided the necessary RADIUS billing infrastructure software, tools, and support services necessary to accomplish this goal.
Application Desription
The requirements for the RADIUS Server component of the solution combined high performance with the need for customization. The RADIUS billing solution delivered rating and billing functions in real-time, requiring high and reliable RADIUS transaction rates. The role of the RADIUS server was to authenticate access and track and evaluate usage of service provider users.
The requirements were to control and support 300,000 simultaneous sessions and use the reporting capabilities to generate detailed account activity reports for billing for IP services, including Internet access, VoIP, DSL and data services. The billing company required a RADIUS server that had a solid, robust platform capable of high transaction rates that could be configured to meet their complex billing system requirements.
Solution
The company purchased Interlink Networks’ RAD-Series RADIUS Server, which features very high performance and scalability, and the optional Software Developer’s Kit (SDK) to develop custom server plug-ins to meet their specific requirements. The RADIUS Server authorizes and manages multiple methods of network access; authenticating users upon login, checking account balances, controlling simultaneous sessions, and collecting session log data for accounting and usage tracking.
Utilizing the RADIUS Server SDK, the billing company developed custom plug-in modules that:
- Authenticate against multiple Oracle databases by mapping user attributes to internal variables.
- Track and analyze customer usage patterns to determine trends or high-risk scenarios. This was done by recording the session data and writing it to a database that is then analyzed for trends.
- Perform standard and ad-hoc reporting, such as routing accounting information to different client companies and databases.
RADIUS server plug-in modules can be coded, configured, and compiled – without the need to change the RADIUS server source code. The result is a shared module which is loaded by the RADIUS server at runtime. Custom plug-ins can modify authentication and authorization processes, modify incoming and outgoing packets, call any external AAA services, and conduct specific account logging activities.
The most important benefits that RADIUS server provided in this application were customization and superior performance. Flexibility is designed into RAD-Series RADIUS Server. The foundation of the server is based on open, modular, object-oriented architecture, which significantly reduces the costs of developing, maintaining, and upgrading the network access system. The RADIUS server SDK provided the billing company with all the tools they needed to add their specific functional requirements to this modular architecture.
High performance is also a key attribute of the RAD-Series RADIUS Server, based on a decade of developing RADIUS solutions for carrier customers who require high and sustainable AAA transaction rates. The RADIUS Server offers unprecedented flexibility and customization with the use of the SDK, and can scale from thousands to millions of transactions with ease.
Conclusion
Carrier class, highly customizable, and standards-based, those were the simple but demanding requirements met by the RAD-Series RADIUS server. Interlink Networks’ RADIUS server and RADIUS SDK offered the billing company a complete AAA management solution that is unmatched by any competitor in the industry.
Your application might not be handling 100 million users a day, but the flexibility, reliability, and scalability of the RAD-Series RADIUS Server are features every service provider cannot do without. The RAD-Series RADIUS Server is a smart investment for a mission critical application. As your needs change or grow, the RAD-Series can be handle the load and be configured with new functionality to meet your changing needs.
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