Introduction of accounting capabilities in future service architectures

This paper proposes enhancements to the accounting support capabilities of legacy, standardised service architectures. The TINA service architecture is used as a reference, even though our approach is applicable to other models as well. The key points in this paper are the following. First, the definition of minimal extensions to the standard service architecture components, so as to enable them to offer accounting information. Second, the definition of the interface among the extended service architecture components and the new components that will undertake the accounting functionality. Third, the definition of the functionality of the new components that will undertake the accounting functionality. New components are defined so as to minimally impact the specified service architecture.