Glossary

CDR

A Call Details Record (CDR) is the record of a VoIP call in a certain format, retrieved from a CDRs provider.

Service CDR

A pseudo-CDR generated from Asterisell, and not associated to a real VoIP call, representing the income of a bundle-rate or of a pure service (e.g. rent of lines and so on).

It is useful to see it like a normal CDR, because it can be displayed in reports, and sent to Reseller, but in some cases it will be treated in a special way, because it is not a real VoIP call.

Extension

A VoIP account-code used inside CDR for identifying a call of a specific customer.

Vendor

A Vendor is a fiscal entity that routes CDRs, and that can requires payments for this service.

CDRs provider

A CDR provider is some computer related medium (a directory, a database table, some message queue, an FTP account, etc..) containing CDRs to import into Asterisell.

Note that a CDRs provider is not a Vendor, also if in many configurations there is a one to one to one match between a Vendor and a CDR provider. There can be configurations where the same CDR provider is used from many Vendors (you retrieve CDRs from ony of your VoIP server, configured for collaborating with many VoIP providers), or a Vendor can use more than one CDR provider (the Vendor uses multiple FTP accounts).

Communication channel

The Communication channel identifies the exact method used for routing a VoIP call to the external telephone number.

It can be used for:

associating to a CDR its Communication channel type
associating to a CDR the Vendor responsible of the routing
as condition to use during rating of a CDR

Usually there can be many communication channels, but few Vendor and Communication channel type.

The usual Asterisell rating workflow is:

import CDR from a CDRs provider
associate to the CDR the Communication channel
use it for deriving the corresponding Communication channel type and Vendor
use this information for rating the CDR

Communication channel type

Different Communication channels can have common types (e.g. fixed-line, mobile-calls, enum-calls, SIP-calls).

The Communication channel type can be used:

for calculating the cost/income of a CDR
for grouping CDRs of the same type in on-line and off-line reports

Instances configuration file

The fabric_data/asterisell_instances.py file, with all the params of demo, production and reseller instances, and invoked by the Instances configuration tool

Instances configuration tool

The instances configuration tool is a fabric based tool used for administering one or more Asterisell host and Asterisell instance, according the content of Instances configuration file.

It can be installed on a distinct host respect the Asterisell host, or on the same host.

Customized file

A customized file is a file put into customizations directory, and not shared with other users of Asterisell, and not present in the OSS repository. It contains instance-specific customizations.

Usually a functionality is implemented in a generic way in Asterisell, and then the customized file contains only the few instance specific settings/behaviour.

The customized file had to be loaded on the Asterisell host by explicit settings in Instances configuration file.

Main rate plan

A cost or income rate-plan specified in user readable domain specific language. In contains all the high-level logic for rating calls. The details are stored on external CSV rate.

CSV rate

A file in CSV format, or another format, with many entries for associating cost or incomes to a call.

Password file

The fabric_data/passwords.ini file, with all the passwords used from the Instances configuration file.

Its content is not saved on the Git repository (it is under .gitignore), so its content is more protected.

Asterisell instance

An instance of Asterisell installed on a Asterisell host.

Asterisell host

A physical-server or virtual-machine, running one or more Asterisell instance.

It is managed by Instances configuration tool, according the content of Instances configuration file.

Reseller

A reseller is an Asterisell instance using one or more local or external Asterisell instance as CDRs provider. A reseller owns its customers, and it has its distinct brand/fiscal-poisition respect its main Asterisell instances.

From a technical point of view, a reseller instance is easier to manage, because many settings are automatically managed from Asterisell:

income rates for resellers on the main Asterisell instance are automatically exported and keept in synchro on the reseller instance, where they are cost rates
the associated CDRS processed from the main Asterisell instance are automatically sent to the reseller instance
CDRS formats are known
etc..

The relationships between Asterisell instances can form a graph, i.e. they are nodes exchanging info. So a reseller instance can use also normal providers, and it is an instance like the others.

Job processor

Usually every 5 minutes (but it is configurable), the Asterisell instance will execute the configured jobs (e.g. import CDRS, rate them, generate reports).

Some mantainance jobs can be postponed and executed with larger time-frames.