6. DATA SOURCES › 6.6 Basic Network Accounting

6.6 Basic Network Accounting

Historically, billing for network resources has been largely
relegated to the few adventurous organizations that dared to
experiment.  Now, the information in the CA MICS Network
Analyzer and the billing facilities of CA MICS Accounting and
Chargeback can be combined to offer a network accounting
approach which will satisfy the basic requirements of many
enterprises.

Basic network accounting is supported for multiple
information sources:  CA NetSpy terminal data, CA NetSpy
network session accounting data/network gateway accounting
data, NetView Performance Monitor (NPM) session data, NPM
network session accounting/network gateway accounting data,
NetView Session Monitor Response Time Monitor (RTM) data,
NetView Session Monitor accounting and availability data, CA
NetMaster RTM data, and CA NetMaster accounting data. Since
there is an overlap in information provided by these sources,
the decision on which source(s) to use is governed by the
needs of the enterprise, the specific information available
from each source, and the operational costs associated with
each network monitor.

Since more than one network monitor can collect data for the
same SNA session, it is possible that you will develop a
billing scheme that causes duplicate billing for some
sessions.  For instance, if you are billing for session
connect time or characters transmitted based on information
from both NPM and NetView, then you may end up billing some
users twice for the same session activity.  You should
carefully evaluate these considerations when constructing a
billing scheme based on network monitor data from more than
one source.

Billing is supported for connectivity to specific network
resources, session duration, and character traffic for
terminals or groups of terminals in session with specific
applications.  A differential charge may be assessed for
different classes of service, local or remote attachment,
transmission priority, explicit route, virtual route, or any
of several other service or configuration related factors.

The following topics are discussed in this section to provide
you with an overview of basic network accounting support:

   1 - Accounting Information Sources
   2 - Identification of Sessions for Differential Billing

In addition, Section 8.1, CA MICS Accounting and Chargeback
Interface, contains a list of billable elements and specific
issues you should consider before implementing basic network
accounting for your enterprise.