SIM & SIM Pool Rules (FT-1013.031)

About this document

Scope

This document provides background information as well as a functional description of the FT-1013.031 SIM & SIM Pool Rules core feature.

The described feature is supported from the release version 4.0 onwards.

This feature is part of the Automation functionality with number FN-1013.

Feature Availability

Feature overview

Goals

The aim of the SIM & SIM Pool Rules feature is to allow to create and manage SIM and SIM Pool-related Rules (i.e., events that - when the event condition is fulfilled - automatically trigger one or many Actions) as a part of the CMP's extensive automation framework.

Technical Prerequisites

This feature requires the following integrations to function as intended:

• All SMS Usage Rules are available either for MO or MT SMS. These Rules can be configured in the same way for both types of SMS.

• All Voice Usage Rules are available either for MO or MT Voice. These Rules can be configured in the same way for both types of Voice.

Assumptions

1. Minimum of offline charging.

2. Operation of the Rules assumed that Offline CDRs are available in a timely manner and it is recognised that the Rule will not be triggered in real-time.

3. SMS and Voice will only support the MT rules if there are MT events (Ro) or CDR (offline) records.

4. The needed fields are included in the event/CDRs, e.g. IMEI is included in the Gy or RADIUS messages for the “SIM IMEI Changed” Rule. For all Country and Zone triggers the event/CDR must include Country and Network information.

5. For Session Count in offline charging, the CDRs must contain information about the session.

The above prerequisites reflect a typical setup.

Depending on the customer's existing infrastructure, business processes, or regulatory environment, additional integrations or configurations may be necessary to ensure full compatibility and optimal performance.

Functionality of the feature

Basic Concepts of Automation Rules

CMP provides an extensive automation framework that is based on three basic elements: Triggers, Rule Filters, and Actions.

Triggers/Rules

Note: The terms Rules, Triggers, and Trigger Events, respectively the corresponding type definitions (Rule Types and Trigger Types) are used synonymously.

Rules define events that - when the event condition is fulfilled - automatically trigger one or many Actions. Event conditions can be related to the following two CMP objects and the Rule Type explicitly determines the object that is linked to the related event condition:

SIM Cards (~ SIM Rules)

• Rule Triggers related to SIM Cards are called ‘SIM Rules'. Currently, the majority of CMP Rules are related to SIM Cards (Rule Triggers related to SIM Care are displayed on the of the diagram overview diagram below, indicated by Monitoring Target 'SIM’)

SIM Pools (~ Pool Rules)

• Correspondingly Rule Triggers validating Trigger conditions on Pool level are called 'Pool Rules' (see Rules at the bottom of the diagram)

Rule Filters

Rule Filters represent specific filter criteria that allow to limit the set of CMP objects that the event condition shall be evaluated on.

Note that Rule Filters are currently only applicable for SIM Card related Rules Triggers and not for ‘Pool Rules’.

Each Rule definition can have an arbitrary number of Filters defined, and in case more than one Filter has been defined the corresponding filter criteria will be linked according to the following logical rules:

• filter criteria from different type will be linked by AND, and

• filter criteria from the same type will be linked by OR.

In order to make the trigger condition and the defined Rule Filters effective the Rule needs to be activated since all Rules are initially created in INACTIVE status. However, activated Rules can no longer be changed nor are any changes to Filters or additional Filter definitions allowed. To modify a Rule it must be deactivated first.

Actions

Actions represent CMP operations that can be triggered once a Rule condition is met. A Rule can have one or many Actions assigned, and if a Trigger condition is met, all of the assigned Actions will be executed in the order given by the sequence numbers (in ascending order) set during the assignment process.

Basic Flow for defining Automation Rules

The following diagram displays the basic sequence of steps to define an Automation Rule.

SIM Rules

This section describes details applicable to SIM Rules and lists all available related Trigger Types.

Scope of the Rule

The scope of each SIM Rule is defined as All SIM Cards in Context. This scope comprises by default the greatest possible number of SIM Cards in the given context.

The following diagram illustrates the Rule scope for each SIM Rule with scope value All SIM Cards in Context defined in the following contexts:

• Rules defined on the Root level comprise all possible 13 SIM Cards (A.1-C.3) accessible by the CSP User.

• Rules defined for example in the context of Account B apply per default to all 6 SIM Cards (B.1-B.6) of Account B.

SIM Rule Types

Note that Voice-related Rule Types described below are only available when the Voice feature is enabled on the CMP instance.

The following table explains the scope of each available SIM Rule Type.

Note: 

• All SMS Count Rules (Count - 24 hrs, Count - Billing Cycle, Count in Country - Billing Cycle, Count in Zone - Billing Cycle) are available either for MO or MT SMS. The Rules can be configured in the same way for both types of SMS.

• All Voice Duration Rules (Duration - 24 hrs, Duration Billing Cycle, Duration in Country - Billing Cycle, Duration in Zone - Billing Cycle) are available either for MO or MT Voice. The Rules can be configured in the same way for both types of Voice.

Pool Rules

As described above this section describes details related to Pool Rules (event conditions are related to SIM Pools).

Pool Rule Types

Note that Voice-related Rule Types described below are only available when the Voice feature is enabled on the CMP instance.

The following table explains the scope of each available Pool Rule Type.

Note: 

• All SMS Usage Rules are available either for MO or MT SMS. The Rules can be configured in the same way for both types of SMS.

• All Voice Usage Rules are available either for MO or MT Voice. The Rules can be configured in the same way for both types of Voice.

Percentage based Pool Triggers

In the case of Pool Rules, CMP allows to specify absolute or percentage values as trigger thresholds. The use of percentage values as a threshold enables monitoring of the overage use case for both dynamic and static SIM Pools. The current Pool size (i.e. 100 percent) in the Home Zone for the particular service (i.e. Data, SMS MO, SMS MT, Voice MO, Voice MT) serves as the basis for the percentage thresholds.

Note:

Percentage based Pool Triggers are only applicable for threshold Pool Rules. Currently, all available Pool Rules define threshold trigger conditions (see table above), when adding new Pool rules this definition has to be taken into account.

Assigning Actions to Pool related Triggers

Unlike for SIM related Triggers, in the case of a Pool related Trigger the Action target is not implicitly given by the SIM that triggered the Action. Currently, the following principles apply.

The Action target of any Pool related Trigger is the SIM Card in the Pool that caused the Trigger condition to become true.

As the Action Repetition Type is recorded on SIM level the Action assigned to the Pool related Trigger will still be triggered after the first occurrence even if the Action Repetition Type has been set to ONCE, as long as another SIM Card causes the Trigger condition (e.g. Pool size >= threshold) to become true. This means that not only one (the first) SIM Card in a Pool will be suspended by this mechanism, but every SIM Card that attempts to consume data after the threshold has been exceeded.

Example The following diagram shows an example scenario for a Pool (Pool C) with 3 SIM Cards: The described scenario assumes (for SIM C.1 and C.2) that the CMP Suspend-operation via Suspend Service Profile has been successfully completed before the related SIM Card requests the next data grant. This might not be the case for high-volume SIM Cards consuming data in a short time span, thus contributing more than one grant size to Pooled data usage (see SIM C.3).

Context of Automation Rules

Automation Rules follow the context concept applicable to all objects managed in the Enterprise Portal, therefore each Rule Trigger and each Action is created either in the context of

• the Root context (in case the Portal User has CSP Admin credentials),

• an Account (if the Portal User owns Account login credentials).

As usual, the context defines the owner of the object, but in relation to Automation Rules, it specifically defines the initial scope of a Rule Trigger (i.e. which SIM Cards are monitored for the events defined).

• Rule Triggers defined on the Root level are correspondingly applicable to all the SIM Cards accessible by the CSP in the Enterprise Portal. Practically this means ALL SIM Cards that have been assigned to any Account are visible in the Enterprise Portal.

• Rule Triggers defined on Account level are applicable for all the SIM Cards assigned to the corresponding Account (and therefore visible to an Account User).

Rule Context and Filters

The context of a given SIM Rule with scope value ‘All SIM Cards in Context’ defines the default scope as the starting point for defining Rule Filters, however, not all available Filter Types are applicable for all contexts.

The following table describes which Filter Types are available on Root and/or Account level.

In conclusion, the application of Rule Filters depends on three factors:

1. Rule Filters can only be defined for SIM Rules with scope value All SIM Cards in Context, but not for SIM Rules with scope value Individual SIM Cards.

2. Rule Filters can only be defined for SIM-related Trigger/Rule Types (i.e. SIM Rules), Pool-related Rule Types (i.e. Pool Rules) are currently excluded from the Filter definition.

3. The Filter Types applicable for a SIM Rule with scope value ‘All SIM Cards in Context’ are dependent on the context of the Rule.

The following diagram shows the basic Rule definition workflow enriched by the three factors of Filter definition described above:

Detailed Flow for defining Automation Rules

The following diagram summarizes the steps of Automation Rules setup that have been described throughout this document.