Product catalogs are defined for each channel by the service provider. As a user, you can browse through the product catalog to view the various offerings of the service provider. A service provider can also access a customer account dashboard and view the product catalog for that account.

A user can access the Catalog page by clicking either the Catalog tab or the Browse Catalog link on the Dashboard. An account user registered in a particular channel will see the product catalog defined for that particular channel, with product prices displayed in the currency that is specified for that account.

The service provider decides how the service offerings are displayed to the users while browsing the catalog. There are two modes of display, Pay-as-you-go and Product Bundle. The service provider sets the pay-as-you-go configuration parameter to true or false, during the installation of CloudPortal Business Manager. This setting controls how a user can view the product offerings, in a pay-as-you-go mode or in a product bundle mode.

Pay-as-you-go mode:

When you browse the catalog, you will see the Utility Rate Card that lists the price for each resource or product and you are charged for the amount of your actual consumption. For each one of the resources (products) that generates a usage based on your activity, you are charged by the prices shown in the rate card. When you provision a resource using this option, a subscription is created by the name "Utility Bundle" and is listed in your list of subscriptions that can be accessed from the Usage & Billings tab. You can terminate the subscription at any time. However, you cannot reprovision or reconfigure the resource.

Product Bundles mode:

When you browse the catalog, you can view the product bundles that are defined for and available to your channel. The bundles are further classified by the frequency of the recurring charges, for example, monthly, quarterly, or annual. This information is displayed in the tabs of the Pricing section.

Based on your resource needs, you can select the resource type that you want and filter by provisioning constraints (or resource components) and frequency of recurring charges to get a list of product bundles that match your selection criteria.

Each product bundle displays in its details, the bundle charges such as one time charge for the activation of the bundle, the recurring charges and their frequency, and entitlements that are given when you subscribe to the product bundle. The prices are specified in the currency set for the account. Apart from the charges specified for the bundle, charges may apply for any product consumption that is not covered by the bundle. The utility rates for such usage are listed in the Utility Rate card that is accessible from the bundle details.

CloudPortal Business Manager enables you to select a product bundle, specify the resource components, configure, and subscribe to the bundle.

You can either subscribe to a fresh subscription, reprovision an existing resource, or reconfigure an existing subscription. After subscribing to a product bundle, you can choose to provision the resources immediately or later.