Akamai

Type of Data

CDN Bandwidth, CDN Usage

Description

Usage

Usage shows the outbound GBs transferred for the reporting period. The Openmix app queries the Usage metric as a means to determine if cost must be considered for DNS routing. If the CDN is approaching a target where the customer’s cost will be increased due to usage above the SLA, the Openmix app can select an alternative CDN.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth shows the recent or current (last 5 minutes) amount of outbound traffic the CDN is actively serving for the customer. The Openmix app uses Bandwidth as a means to determine the current traffic load for a CDN. The Openmix app can then route around CDNs currently serving heavy volume.

Data Feed Format

At the start of the billing month, usage may not be available from Akamai for the “first couple of days” of the month, while they close out invoices for the previous month and switch to calculating for the current month. During this time the Openmix Feed will return usage as empty, for example,

      {
        "bandwidth": {
          "unit": "Mbps",
          "value": "0.62"
        },
        "usage": {
          "unit": "GB",
          "value": 0.0
        },
      }
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Bandwidth with usage metric of 95/5 Mbps chosen for product:

      {
        "bandwidth": {
          "unit": "Mbps",
          "value": "487.36"
         },
        "usage": {
          "unit": "Mbps",
          "value": 4572.995
          },
      }
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Peak Mbps metric reported in usage would look the same:

    {
      "bandwidth": {
        "unit": "Mbps",
        "value": "494.40"
      },
      "usage": {
        "unit": "Mbps",
        "value": 11511.112
      },
    }
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Bandwidth will always represent the same number even if other metrics are returned for usage.

Total MB metric for usage:

    {
      "bandwidth": {
        "unit": "Mbps",
        "value": "481.35"
      },
      "usage": {
        "unit": "MB",
        "value": 321808874.518
      },
    }
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Typically, data is available in the Billing center from the third or the fourth of the month.

Implementation Notes

Bandwidth

• Legacy real-time reports SOAP API: https://control.akamai.com/RealtimeReports.xsd
• The summary of Free-flow bandwidth and Edgesuite are totaled.
• If CP codes or Contract/Report Groups are included in installed configuration, summary values are filtered by configured CP codes. Otherwise, bandwidth for all CP Codes is included.
• Bandwidth is filtered to only those CP codes that exist within the selected contract/report groups.
• It usually makes more sense to either select contracts or multiple report groups. Report groups are provisioned by Akamai on behalf of a customer and allow for a granular view of contract usage for a set of CP codes. Go to https://control.akamai.com/core/search/kb_article.search?articleId=8682.

Usage

• If there is no filter type (for example when older recipe is installed), it is the month to date usage of the NetStorage product.
• If Filter type is chosen and filtering is by CP Code, all customer report sources (contracts and report groups) are retrieved from the “Report Sources” service. CP codes matching the selection for each contract or report group are retrieved from the “CP Codes” service and used to create a filtered selection of contracts and report groups.
• Usage is totaled for the select product and metric for all selected contracts and report groups. Usage is totaled into one number for all selected contracts and report groups. If a selected report group exists in a selected contract, usage data is counted twice (once at the contract level and once for the report group).

Reconciliation Steps

Minimum Requirements

• Citrix Akamai control center account.
• Akamai control center URL: https://control.akamai.com
• API Docs URL (Billing and Usage API): https://developer.akamai.com/API/luna/billing-usage/overview.html

How to Reconcile Akamai Bandwidth Reporting with Fusion Data Feeds

• Go to Akamai Control Center: Monitor > User Traffic
• Click Change if you want to change the selected CP codes or select all.
• Select Edge Bandwidth from the list on the right.
• The number being returned for usage is the latest edge bandwidth usage from the most recent 5 minute window. You will see the exact value fed to Openmix by hovering over the rightmost edge of the chart. This number will either match or be very close to the value displayed for “Latest”. You must be able to correlate the data logged by Fusion to the time slice in the chart that matches when the feed was executed.

How to Reconcile Akamai Usage Reporting with Fusion Openmix Data Feeds

• Go to Akamai control center: Monitor > Billing Center
• Select Monthly Usage tab.
• Select From: current month and To: current month.
• Select desired Contract/Report Group.
• Select Product.
• Usage Data is updated with estimated values every 5 minutes.

NOTE: There is no way to reconcile a CP code based configuration using the Akamai control center. Customers are invoiced by contract and/or report groups. CP codes can change what contracts or CP codes they are associated with from day to day, so the CP codes for a Contract/Report Group are only available on the Daily usage report.

Why Fusion and Akamai control center metrics might not match

Bandwidth

• Bandwidth must match the reported “Latest” calculations for edge bandwidth.
• By default, all customer CP codes are included in the calculation.
• If CP Codes have been specified in the configuration, bandwidth is filtered to only include values for the specified CP codes.
• If Contract/Report Groups have been specified, bandwidth is filtered to include all CP codes that are represented by the contract/report groups.

Usage

• If installed Before new configuration options (contract/report group, CP codes, product, metric), usage will only report the usage of the “NetStorage” product for all Contract/Report Groups.
• If installed after new configuration options:
• If a single Contract/Report Group is chosen, then the value must match the Monthly usage in the Billing center for the chosen product and metric. This is the recommended way to configure a feed for usage.
• We expose more filter options than the control center’s billing usage, so care must be taken with the other configurations.
• If multiple Contract/Report Groups are chosen and the same purchase of a product is grouped under multiple report groups and/or contracts, the totals for that product can include duplicate values.
• Customers must make sure selected Report Groups do not include overlapping purchases. Report Groups are created and maintained through support tickets submitted to Akamai.
• If contract and report groups are selected in the configuration, the values for the report group might already be represented by the contract and the value will be totaled which will likely not represent the desired business rules. The customer must know what their contracts and report groups represent, and only mix them if they are sure the same purchase is not included in multiple contracts or report groups.
• If CP codes have been configured as the filter, all contracts and report groups that the CP codes exist in, will be totaled.

NOTE: that usage is unavailable for a time at the start of the billing month.

Set up in Fusion

You can access Fusion Data Feeds from the left navigation pane, under Openmix. For initial steps please refer to the Fusion Integration Documentation.

When you get to the service-specific configuration dialog box, enter the following:

• Name: The name given to the data feed. This defaults to “Service - Platform Name” if not specified.
• Run Every: The frequency with which the data feed is updated from the service.
• Platform: The Platform that is associated with the data feed.
• Username: User name to access the Akamai Control Center.
• Password: Password to access the Akamai Control Center.
• Client Secret: Client Secret required to authenticate Akamai API requests. Go to Akamai developer docs to learn more.
• Access Token: Access Token required to authenticate Akamai API requests. Go to Akamai developer docs to learn more.
• Client Token: Client Token required to authenticate Akamai API requests. Go to Akamai developer docs to learn more.
• Host: URL for Akamai API calls.

Once the above credentials are provided, the bandwidth and usage can be taken from this API.

Step 3

• Select Filter Type as Contract/Report Group or CP code

Step 4a

• If filter by Contract/Report Group selected, select Contracts and/or report groups

Step 4b

• If filter by CP Code is selected, select from the set of CP codes.
• Bandwidth will only be retrieved for selected CP codes.
• Usage is reported at the contract/report group level, so all contracts and report groups that the selected CP code exists in will be included when retrieving usage. A CP code may exist under multiple contract/report groups. It will usually make more sense for a customer to configure by contract/report group when retrieving usage, unless they have CP codes for products assigned to specific report groups or contracts that they want to monitor billing for. CP codes are managed by Akamai through customer filed support cases, but can be seen under Configure > CP Code Management > Manage CP Codes in the Akamai control center

Step 5

• Select product for usage reporting.
• One product must be selected for usage reporting since the same statistic type can exist for different products, but would not make sense if totaled for multiple products.
• List of products only includes products that exist under selected Contract/Report Groups or CP codes.
• List of products is loaded for any products associated with the selected options for both the previous and current month.
• Likely options include: All Streaming Deliver, QoS Monitor, and so on

Step 6

• Select metric to be reported in usage
• Likely options include: 95/5 Mbps, Peak Mbps, Total Hits, Total MB, Total Play Attempts

Once the installation is complete, it is listed on the Fusion data feeds home page with a green status and monitoring metrics in the log history.

To edit a Fusion data feed click the data feed in the list and then click the Edit button. Once you have changed the configuration, click Save. This brings you back to the data feed list with your changes saved and applied to the data feed.