Blog
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Managing Accounts in CGRateS with cgr-console
In a previous post I discussed the different ways to interact with CGRateS whilst it was running. Here I shall give some specific examples of using the cgr-console command to manage accounts and balances. To add a new account to the system, you can use the account_set command, as shown in this example: This will…
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CGRateS APIs
CGRateS is a powerful open-source, carrier-grade rating system, but one of the more confusing aspects of it is how to interact with it. Of course, CGRateS has a configuration file (nominally /etc/cgrates/cgrates.json) which should be used to configure which elements are running, how they are set up, how they connect to databases and other elements,…
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“Have you checked it’s plugged in?”
Customer: Your service is broken! Me: Why do you think that? Customer: because all the connections to it is down Me: I will double check because all indications are it’s all fully working. Can you check your end please? Customer: What information do you need? Me: I don’t need information, I need you to check the configuration…
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CGRates Use Cases
In case you weren’t sure how CGRateS can be used, I’ve outlined a couple of typical use cases. Real-time Call rating with credit control This is possibly the most common use-case. Real time call rating enables prepaid services, reduces credit risk, and can also support real-time capabilities such as fraud detection, revenue assurance, least-cost routing.…
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Setting up a lab for CGRateS
It’s useful to set up a lab to explore CGRateS. I’m providing some notes for this, although you should also make yourself familiar with the CGRateS Documentation. We are building this on Ubuntu 14.04 within a VM. If you use a different OS, you will have to adjust things accordingly. I’m assuming you’ve done all of the…
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CGRates RALs Service
CGRateS Rating Services (RALS) This is a quick introduction to the CGRates RALs service. As the primary purpose of CGRateS is telecoms rating, this is probably the most important service on the system. This service performs rating and applies the results of that rating to balances. For instance, for prepaid calls, it can rate the…
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CGRateS Architecture
The main reference for CGRateS Architecture can be found on the CGRateS Documentation site. This is a high-level summary. Services CGRateS comprises a number of services which are designed to work together, but which can be run separately. There are some dependencies between these services so, that, for instance, running the CDR Server without the…
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CGRateS – A powerful Open Source rating engine
CGRateS (www.cgrates.org) is a powerful and flexible carrier grade rating engine that is also open source. It handles rating for any type of service you can think of, and supports real-time or offline session-based and event-based charging. It easily supports prepaid and postpaid charging schemes and also has the capability to support bundles and shared…
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Adventures in Telecoms
We are working on a series of blogs relating to Open Source Telecommunication applications. This may include product descriptions, tutorials, worked examples, or just plain experimentation.
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Enterprise contracts considered harmful
Enterprise IT contracts are an unavoidable fact of life in many large organisations. So much so, in fact, that they have almost become the norm. So what I’m about to say may be jarring to many. I believe Enterprise IT Contracts are regressive and harmful to an organisation. Let me be clear, by “Enterprise IT…
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