Patent ID: 7672882

Claim:
A computer program storage medium readable by a computer, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by said computer to perform a method for metering usage of composite services which are accessed via a network, the method comprising: requesting a composite service by a user program, wherein said composite service comprises service composition pairs, in which a higher level service invokes a lower level service and a charging model of said higher level service determines said charging model of a service composition pair, said composition pairs comprising: a transaction service over a resource-centric service, in which metering information for a lower resource-centric service, including resource consumption metrics, and for a higher transaction service, including transaction usage metrics, is charged per transaction; a composite resource-centric service, in which metering information for a lower resource-centric service, including lower resource consumption metrics, and for a higher resource-centric service, is charged for composite resource consumption; a composite transactional service, in which metering information for a lower transactional service, including lower transaction usage metrics, and for a higher transaction service, including higher transaction usage metrics, is charged for composite transaction usage; and a resource-centric over a transaction service, in which metering information for a lower transaction service, including lower transaction usage metrics, and for a higher resource-centric service, including higher resource consumption metrics, is charged for resource consumption; generating partial metering records for all service requested by said composite service, said partial metering records corresponding to each requested service, including identities of each higher and lower service of a service composition pair, and an appropriate charging model; sending said partial metering records to an accounting service; and correlating said partial metering records, by said accounting service, based on a hierarchical-tree of said service composition pairs, to create a complete metering record of said requested composite service.