Overview

Subscriber Manager allows a business partner and its residential subscribers to access the SDX owner's equipment via the SDX gateway and to modify objects for residential subscribers in the SDX owner's directory. For an overview of the SDX gateway, see Chapter 2, Dynamic Service Activator. With Subscriber Manager, a business partner and its residential subscribers can perform the following functions:

• Register subscribers.
• Manage subscriber profiles.
• Subscribe to services and unsubscribe from services.
  

  NOTE: Subscriber Manager does not handle information related to billing.

  
  

The SDX owner is responsible for:

• Installing one Subscriber Manager Web application for each business partner (see Configuration and Installation Tasks).
• Configuring Subscriber Manager to interact with the business partner and optionally to start a workflow through the object state manager for the Web (OSMW). For more information about this topic, see Configuration and Installation Tasks).

The business partner is responsible for:

• Creating the gateway clients that communicate with the gateway (see Developing Gateway Clients).
• (Optional) Providing a way (for example, through the portal) for subscribers to register, manage their profiles, and manage services.

Subscriber Manager Operation

The following steps explain how Subscriber Manager interacts with other components to enable the gateway client to manage subscribers and services. Figure 3 illustrates this process.

1. The gateway client sends via HTTP a SOAP request to the Web application server at the SDX gateway.

The request includes:

• Details about the operation that the gateway client wants to perform.
• Information about the OSM that will perform workflow transactions.

2. The Web application server authenticates the gateway client's identity.
3. The Web application server passes the SOAP request to Subscriber Manager.
4. Depending on the type of request, Subscriber Manager proceeds in one of the following ways.

• If the gateway client sends a request for information, Subscriber Manager queries the directory and returns the information as the result of the request.
• If the gateway client sends a request for updates to information, Subscriber Manager creates or changes entries in the directory. If Subscriber Manager is configured to use the OSMW, OSMW transactions control updates to objects in the directory. SDX owners can configure transactions to start workflows that perform associated operations. For example, if the OSMW suspends a subscription, this transaction can trigger a workflow that sends a letter to the subscriber. For details about how Subscriber Manager interacts with the OSMW, see Interactions Between Subscriber Manager and OSMW.

5. Subscriber Manager returns a result to the gateway client via a SOAP response.

Figure 3: Subscriber Manager Operation

Interactions Between Subscriber Manager and OSMW

When you configure Subscriber Manager to use the OSMW, some types of requests from Subscriber Manager initiate OSMW actions that change the state of an object. The OSMW executes a transaction to manage the change of state. When it executes a transaction, the OSMW:

1. Locks the object so that it cannot be changed by another component simultaneously.
2. Checks that the requested action is valid for the object's current state, and cancels the transaction if it is not valid.
3. Executes a workflow if one is associated with the action, and cancels the transaction if the workflow fails.
4. Performs an action that changes the state of the object.
5. Unlocks the object.

Table 9 shows the actions that the OSMW performs when it receives a specific type of request from Subscriber Manager.

 Table 9:  Request Types for OSMW Actions 

 Request Type (Operation)
 OSMW Action

 CreateSubscriber

 create


 CreateSubscriberExt

 create


 ModifySubscriber

 modify


 DeleteSubscriber

 delete


 SuspendSubscriber

 suspend


 ResumeSubscriber

 resume


 FixSubscriber

 fix


 ChangeBasicSubscription

 chgbasic


 CreateSubscription

 create


 ModifySubscription

 modify


 DeleteSubscription

 delete


 SuspendSubscription

 suspend


 ResumeSubscription

 resume