Real-time billing as a service — A standard-based proof-of-concept implementation

This article presents a proof-of-concept implementation of a managed service for real-time rating, charging, and billing. The formal model of the usage tariffs and the operational interface utilized for this service are based on open standards. An end-to-end use case from the domain of medical image processing is outlined to illustrate the ease of integration of rating and charging into existing IT services.