IEA Software, Inc.

Colocation and Hosting solutions - Emerald Management Suite

Previous version

This page provides information about a prior version of Emerald. For information about current version please click here


Colocation and Application Hosting

The Emerald Management suite of applications provides several core benefits for server colocation and application hosting providers (ASPs).

Automated Recurring Billing

Usage Rating & Billing

Many colocation service providers are faced with the problem of billing for network usage of physical and virtual servers they host on behalf of their customers. While it is generally a relatively simple matter to collect byte counts from routers and ethernet switches this approach often does not provide the granular results necessary for billing purposes. Some reasons for this are considerations for local traffic between servers, local broadcast traffic and layer two encapsulation. It may also be desirable to bill based on the usage of specific ports or protocols such as http and https while excluding traffic between local subnets.

EmerNet Rating Statistics The Emerald suite includes a real-time network traffic rating system (EmerNet) capable of classifying and rating ip traffic flows in near real-time. EmerNet works in one of two modes. It can accept Cisco NetFlow exports from a Cisco router or netflow compliant collection probe. Alternately EmerNet can passively collect traffic flows directly from ethernet segments by configuring a mirror/monitor port at the ethernet switch.

The Emerald rating system enables a wide array of possible network billing options. Some examples of these are shown below:

Custom Application Rating

Application service providers are often faced with the problem of billing consumers for an app specific metric of usage. The Emerald 5 rating system was designed to allow rating of arbitrary data throughout the time and data domains. Emeralds rating system breaks down the process into four distinct areas configured through the Emerald rating UI.

Trouble Ticketing / CRM features

Please see the Emerald product page for a complete list of features.