Interoperability	Flexibility	Ease of Use
Component Based	Performance	Scalability
Rightsizing

Interoperability B-oo-levard® interoperates easliy, efficient, and robust with any other system the operator is already running or planning to run. The B-oo-levard® API Manager provides a range of highly flexible gateways to easily interface external systems with the core B-oo-levard® functions. Those are provided with industry standard protocols and / or XML message formats. The set of API’s delivered with the B-oo-levard® API Manager is extensible and adaptable in a systematic way, creating a compatible suite of API’s for the B-oo-levard® business functions. The API Manager opens the B-oo-levard® environment to satisfy every kind of business and information need. Interoperability is a two-way requirement and B-oo-levard® fulfils it: not only is it able to use other system’s data, but it also offers its internal data to other systems via well-defined, open APIs.

Flexibility With B-oo-levard® our customers can respond to changing market needs very quickly - in terms of a dramatically reduced time to market at low, often even at zero out-of-pocket cost. It is easy to implement the specific business requirements which may result from new technologies like GPRS or UMTS. Or from changing business processes or new market scenarios and requirements. B-oo-levard® can be used as a best-of-breed rating and / or billing component in an integrated architecture working together with other products or in-house systems. Or as a stand-alone rating and billing system, e.g. for new products or market segments or by new market players, irrespectively whether for prepaid or post-paid services. Or as an excellent tool for tariff plan simulation in order to determine bottom-line effects of alternative or new tariff plans and marketing campaigns.

Ease of Use B-oo-levard® is very easy to configure - including the logical structures of tariff plans, products, etc. Even interfaces are configuarble. This makes B-oo-levard® so efficient to operate. B4E has developed a user-oriented online configuration tool in order to avoid software changes just because of new market requirements. This has been possible as B4E's business is licensing Rating and Billing software - and not selling professional services, i.e. programming to enable the software for what you as the customer have paid already with the license fee. The flexibility of B-oo-levard® is especially true and proven for: Products and Services Contracts Pricing / Discounting / Campaigns Interfaces These on-line functions are using an intelligent graphical decision tree technology so that the user has always a clear picture of what she/he is doing.

Component Based Software All of these requirements cannot (or at least not easily) be implemented by a system, which is not component based: Only component based systems allow the configuration of a "rightsized" system: The components are automatically arranged in such a way that only those functions are performed which are really necessary. Not only component based systems provide interoperability, but such systems can provide it much easier: The fact that the components are already designed in such a way that they are able to talk to each other makes it a lot easier for a system consisting of such components to talk to other systems. A component based system which is properly designed will be very flexible: By having assigned each component the responsibility for specific parts of the whole problem domain, change requests can usually be tracked down to much fewer places than in traditional systems. Well-designed component based systems will be able to offload functionality to other nodes of a network (and thus provide scalability) without major re-designs of the system.

Performance Performance is a key issue. It is definitely a requirement that has been taken into consideration from the very beginning. Already today data services (thru IP networks as well as "traditional" networks) supercede voice services; as data services will continue to increase dramatically this will generate more and more Event Data Records (EDR's). With the implementation of GPRS and/or UMTS and the creation of parallel sessions (on-line, voice, many devices using the same identification number) this will be for the cellular networks, but for the rating and billing systems, too. Even medium-sized operators and service providers will need to process millions of such EDR's a day. B-oo-levard® is proven to process millions and millions of EDR's during Individual Pricing (Rating) and Aggregate Pricing (Billing)

Scalability So is scalability: a system, which just “performs well”, but is not scalable, is of very limited use, because it will not be able to cope with ever-increasing subscriber numbers and event data record volumes. A scalable system must be able to utilize additional hardware (in form of new nodes being added to a cluster or network) efficiently without increasing the synchronization cost (and thus reducing overall performance) significantly. B-oo-levard® has been proven to process in parallel on several servers without any re-design of the software architecture or software code. And this at an absolute minimal overhead rate.

Ability to Rightsize B4E's customer only needs to buy, only to maintain and only to process what really is needed in his business scenario. This is a clear vote against monolithic packages which not only require software parts to be bought which are not needed (with regard to functionality) but also to operate these software parts as these types of systems usually only work when functionality is installed.

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