DUCR/ATC Charges Ignore Existing Reservations Resulting in Negative Balances (Doc ID 2234133.1)

Last updated on MARCH 27, 2023

Applies to:

Symptoms

In Oracle Communications Network Charging and Control (NCC) 5.0.3, a change was merged which allowed for the configuration of how multiple concurrent charges would be handled if they would result in a negative bucket balance.

This change is covered in more detail in Note 2007186.1 but in essence, on the Service Logic Controllers (SLCs), a new configuration item (CCS.ccsActions.allowNegativeNoFundsPolicyOnCommit) was added which:

• When set to true, would allow balances to go negative
• When set to false, would result in an error/exception being thrown by the beVWARS process and returned to the SLC

When this configuration item is set to true, a new problem presents itself when using the Direct Unit Charge Request (DUCR) Feature Node (FN) to send an Apply Tariff[ed] Charge (ATC) message to the Voucher Wallet Servers (VWS').  Any existing reservations against a balance type are ignored when the ATC is committed which can potentially force a bucket value to go negative if there is insufficient funds in said bucket for both the existing reservation and the ATC charge.  Any configured Balance Type (BT) cascades are ignored.

An ATC is used to request a charge to be performed for a known/fixed amount while applying all the applicable tariffs. An example of its usage would be to perform a session charge in one go ie. charge for 10 minutes of usage.

For example, assuming the setup:

1. A General Cash (GC) bucket exists and has a balance of $2
2. A Promotional Cash (PC) bucket exists and has a balance of $100
3. There is a BT cascade set up which rolls over from GC to PC
4. There is an existing reservation against the GC bucket which has reserved $1

If an ATC request comes in requesting a charge which totals $1.50, then instead of $1 being charge from the GC bucket ($2 (Total) - $1 (Reserved)) and $0.50 being charged from the PC bucket, the entire $1.50 is charged from the GC bucket which ends up going negative (-$0.50) when the ongoing concurrent reservation is committed.

Changes

1. Installation/upgrade of NCC to 5.0.3
2. Enabling CCS.ccsActions.allowNegativeNoFundsPolicyOnCommit on the SLCs
3. Applying new service logic that allows for the potential of ATC charges to be performed at the same time as real time reservations

Cause

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