Usage metering key concepts and relationships
Licensing Information
The feature described in this documentation is optional and might not be part of the edition covered by your company's license.
This page defines the main concepts and terms used in usage metering and summarizes how core components, such as meter types, meters, categories, and thresholds, relate to each other within the Usage Engine.
The diagram below illustrates the relationships between the core components of Usage metering.
Note!
Meter types serve as templates for new meters. Once a meter is created, it keeps the properties it inherited from its meter type, but does not update if the meter type changes later. Updates to a meter type only affect meters created afterward; existing meters remain unchanged unless updated directly.
See: Managing meters
Common usage metering terms
Here you will find descriptions of some commonly used terms within usage metering.
Term | Description |
|---|---|
Meter Type | Represents a product or service offered on a usage-based billing model (e.g., a streaming service where customers pay per item streamed per month). Meter types are created in the Usage Metering interface, configured with aggregation and category, and assigned a unique Meter Type ID. |
Meter Type ID | The unique identifier for a meter type. Used when creating a meter for a customer (User ID) to specify which product the customer is using. |
Aggregation | Defines how usage data is aggregated before being sent to downstream billing systems. Supported types include sum, increment, minimum, and maximum. Aggregation is configured in the meter type. |
Category | A label assigned to each meter type to organize and group related meter types. Categories allow multiple meter types to be managed together and can be used to apply the same set of usage data or rules across several meter types. Each meter type must belong to a category, and a single category can include multiple meter types. |
Capacity | Specifies the total amount associated with a meter type, serving as a reference value when setting thresholds. Thresholds can be defined as whole numbers or as percentages of this capacity. |
Threshold | Defines specific usage limits on a meter, either as a whole number or a percentage of the meter’s capacity. Thresholds are used to monitor and manage usage, enabling actions such as alerts or notifications when usage crosses defined levels. |
Custom Fields | Additional attributes are defined on meter types or meters to capture extra business-specific information. Custom fields provide flexibility for mapping, reporting, or integration needs beyond standard fields. |
User ID | Identifies the customer to whom the meter belongs, such as an email address, username, or MSISDN number. |
Meter Processor | A processing function added to a stream that collects usage data and forwards it to downstream billing systems. Configured with guiding rules to determine which meters are updated, and assigned a unique Meter Key. |
Meter Key | The unique identifier for a meter processor. Used when creating a meter for a customer (User ID) to route collected usage data to the appropriate meter. |
Guiding Rule | Directs usage data records to the correct meter for updating. Each meter processor can have one or more guiding rules, each specifying a category of meter types and containing conditions grouped by fields and operators. |
Conditions | Criteria within guiding rules that determine when usage should be aggregated, such as only aggregating records where a specific field (e.g., “downloadStatus”) has a specified value (e.g., “Successful”). Data can be enriched before being sent to the meter processor. |
Meter | Represents a customer’s usage “bucket,” measuring how much of a product or service is used. Meters are created via API, referencing the Meter type ID and Meter key, and are configured per customer (User ID). |
Usage Data | The data collected to calculate product or service usage (e.g., number of streamed items, minutes used). Usage data is gathered via streams, which can include functions for verification, correction, and transformation before processing by the Meter processor and forwarding to billing systems. |