COUNTING AND BILLING MECHANISM FOR WEB-SERVICES BASED ON A SOAP-COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL

摘要

The present invention discloses a system and method for counting Web-Services by means of a Resource-Counter Service offered as an own, independent Web-Service based on a SOAP communication protocol as well as a system and method for billing Web-Services using the result of the Resource-Counter Service for calculation of a charge. The Resource-Counter Service may be accessed by all Service-Provider having service description of the Resource-Counter Service. The service description for the Resource-Counter Service may be preferably created and published by the Service-Provider, categorized by the Service-Broker, and can be found and used to invoke the Resource-Counter Service by all Service-Provider using a charging model for their Web-Services. The Resource-Counter Service mainly provides the functionality to create all necessary data allowing calculation of the charge for the use of a Web-Service. The final calculation of the charge itself may be done by a separate specific accounting and bill presentment component.