Copy No.

AIRPORT INTEGRATION SERVICES

Aero Billing Distribution Service (ABDS) Specification
dev\Products\UltraIB\Controlled\167 Issue 4.0

Date: 27/11/2013

Prepared on behalf of Ultra Electronics Airport Systems by:

R. Radhakrishnan

© Ultra Electronics Limited 2012-2013

All rights reserved. No Part of this document may be reproduced, duplicated,

distributed or sold in any form or by any means without prior permission in
writing from Ultra Electronics Limited.

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Ultra Electronics Airport Systems Aero Billing Distribution Service (ABDS) Specification

LIST OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................. 3
1.1 PURPOSE................................................................................................................... 3
1.2 SERVICE DESCRIPTION............................................................................................3
1.3 RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER SERVICES AND DOCUMENTS.....................................3
2. SCOPE................................................................................................................................ 3
2.1 GENERAL.................................................................................................................... 3
2.2 RELATED DOCUMENTS.............................................................................................4
3. OUTLINE DESCRIPTION...................................................................................................4
3.1 GENERAL.................................................................................................................... 4
4. APPLICATION LEVEL SPECIFICATION............................................................................5
4.1 USE OF THE SERVICE...............................................................................................5
4.2 MESSAGE SEQUENCE DIAGRAM.............................................................................8
4.3 NORMAL OPERATION................................................................................................9
4.4 ERROR DETECTION AND RECOVERY.....................................................................9
5. BUSINESS RULES AND SECURITY..................................................................................9
5.1 COMMON SECURITY FEATURES..............................................................................9
5.2 SERVICE-SPECIFIC SECURITY FEATURES...........................................................10
6. TRANSPORT.................................................................................................................... 10
6.1 JAVA MESSAGE SERVICE (JMS).............................................................................10
6.2 WEB SERVICES (WS)...............................................................................................10
7. SAMPLE MESSAGES.......................................................................................................11
7.1 SAMPLE MESSAGE FILES.......................................................................................11
LIST OF FIGURES.................................................................................................................... 13

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1. INTRODUCTION

The Aero Billing Distribution Service (ABDS) provides a distribution service for aero
billing information relating to flights operating at an airport; after the flights have
been fully processed for billing purposes. This document describes the interface to
enable a client system to access the service.

1.1 PURPOSE
The IB forms a central role of the integration of systems including:
1. Imposes a coordinated approach to integration in general and to message
designs
2. Provides message queuing facilities
3. Decouples the interfaces between systems and avoids point-to-point interfaces
4. Supports the concept of reusable services
This ABDS interface defines a reusable service for distributing flight billing
information from the AODB.

1.2 SERVICE DESCRIPTION

The ABDS provides a distribution service for active flight information. Any system
located on the network, or with VPN access, can subscribe to the service, subject
to the necessary agreement and security aspects.
All communication is in the form of XML messages.
The service can supply a different subset of the data to each client system if
necessary by applying an XSLT.

1.3 RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER SERVICES AND DOCUMENTS

This document is one of a series of Application Service Definitions (ASD) which
define the services provided by the IB.
The interface for a specific client system is defined in an Interface Definition
Document (IDD). Each IDD will reference the ASDs which are to be supported by
the interface and includes the following:
1. ABDS Aero Billing Distribute Service - this document
2. ABUS Aero Billing Update Service

2. SCOPE

2.1 GENERAL
This document specifies the communication mechanisms, messages to be
transferred and the real-time interaction between the IB and client systems.

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This document does not describe the structure of the messages passed between
systems, which are defined and documented in the relevant XML schemas.
General guidelines on the use and implementation of IB services are contained in
Service Frequently Asked Questions [Ref: 6].
From the point of view of the client system, the IB provides the ABDS service.
However the aero billing information is sourced by the IB from the back-end AODB,
in a manner hidden from the client system. The internal working of the IB and the
interfaces between the IB and the back-end database is outside the scope of this
document.
The service is designed to satisfy a wide range of client system requirements and
is therefore described in a generic manner.

2.2 RELATED DOCUMENTS

The interface for a specific client system is defined in the Interface Definition
Document (IDD), which contains the following:

1. Description of the use of separate application services (e.g. ABDS), which are
combined to satisfy the overall interface requirements

2. The data element table for each service listing the elements which are sent or
received

3. Business rules configured in the IB configuration for the client system, which
restrict the allowable parameters which can be selected in a subscription
request.
4. Implementation information such as:
JMS queue names (if appropriate)
Web Service endpoint URL (if appropriate)
Time out values to be used
Appendix 4 contains a checklist for the ABDS service, which is intended for use
during the agreement of the IDD.
The client system IDD takes precedence over information in this document.
The IDD may therefore override recommended information given in this
specification, for example, configurable items such as timeouts suggested in this
document.

3. OUTLINE DESCRIPTION

3.1 GENERAL
The ABDS provides a distribution service for aero billing information. Any system
located on the network, or with VPN access, can subscribe to the service, subject
to the necessary agreement and security aspects.
All communication is in the form of XML messages.

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A client system subscribes to the service by sending a subscription request. This

will result in a snapshot of all the aero billing data since the previous subscription
ended, and then all subsequent data and updates.
The subscription request also includes the time/date from which the data is
required. If no time/date is specified then the IB will send a snapshot of all the
requested data. If a time/date is specified then only records for data items that
have changed since that time/date will be sent in the snapshot.
Subsequently, if the client has requested updates in the subscription request, the
IB sends messages to the client in real-time as updates to general information take
place.
Clients should send a status message to check that their subscription is still valid.
Clients may send a message to cancel a subscription.
Messages are removed from the IB message queue as part of the read process. If
a client fails to remove messages from the IB message queue within a configurable
period, then the IB will cancel the client’s subscription.
The status message may be used to indicate that the connection is still valid. Both
the frequency of status requests made by the client, and the timeout before
messages are deleted from the queue by the IB is configurable for each client, and
will be agreed and recorded in the appropriate Interface Definition Document
(IDD).

4. APPLICATION LEVEL SPECIFICATION

4.1 USE OF THE SERVICE

1.1.1 Subscription request
To subscribe to the service, the client should first send a StatusRequest message.
The IB will normally reply with a StatusResponse indicating the current service
state. If this state indicates that the service is currently unavailable (or if no
response is received) then the client system should continue sending status
requests until state of either “Up” or Down” is received. When a “Down”
StatusResponse has been received the client system sends a
ABDSSubscriptionRequest message to the IB, with parameters specifying the
first data category it wishes to receive.
In reply, the IB sends a SubscriptionResponse message either confirming a
successful subscription, or the reason for failing to subscribe, such as a request to
access data which is not permitted to the particular client system.
When a client first subscribes to the service it may request a full snapshot of the
data, or it may request a catch-up snapshot, to receive data which it may have
missed (e.g. while the client has been unavailable). It may also request to receive
updates to data within that category.
1.1.2 Full Snapshot
The full snapshot comprises the XML messages for the full set of data records
containing all elements for which a value is known, and which satisfy the specified
subscription criteria for message filtering.

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The IB will send this snapshot as a sequence of separate ABDSBillingData

messages. The snapshot is preceded by a SnapshotStart message and followed
by a SnapshotEnd message.
The following filters are available only for SnapshotOnly type requests. These are
all optional, and if omitted will cause no filtering for that item (unless stated
otherwise):
 AircraftRegistration – only records matching the aircraft registration
specified will be returned
 BillRecordType - only records matching the billing record type specified will
be returned
 FlightID - only records matching the FightID specified will be returned
 SnapshotStartDateTime - only records for flights with scheduled operation
time later than the time specified will be returned
 SnapshotEndDateTime - only records for flights with scheduled operation
time earlier than the time specified will be returned
 Prevalidated – (true or false, default to true if omitted). If true then only
records that have been pre-validated by the AODB will be returned,
otherwise non-validated records will be returned. “False” is typically used
for requesting details for immediate cash payments.

Important Note: If the client has requests SnapshotThenUpdates then the IB will
send any updates that occur as soon as it can (e.g. after the SnapshotEnd).
Note that use of the full snapshot feature is designed primarily for situations when
the subscribing system needs to reload information, following loss of data, or does
not subscribe for updates. The catch-up snapshot facility should be used in
preference to this full snapshot facility for reloading missed data.
If unexpected events do occur (e.g. IB sends an update for one category in the
middle of a snapshot download) then the client should assume a fault condition,
disconnect and re-subscribe to the service.
If pre-validated data is requested and the data is not in a state to be forwarded to
the client system, a response of “Data Unavailable” will be returned to the client
system.
1.1.3 Catch-up Snapshot
This works in exactly the same way as the Full Snapshot, except that only changes
made to the categories since the specified time/date are sent by the IB.
This mechanism should be used in preference to the Full Snapshot as it vastly
reduces the amount of data that the client has to handle.
Note that if data is deleted from a category while a client has been unavailable
then this will not be included in this catch-up snapshot. However, data is rarely
deleted so this event is highly unlikely.
Note that the preferred use of this mechanism is to specify the OriginatorDateTime
of the last message received from this service as the SnapshotFromDateTime. This
is the preferred method for the following reasons:

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(a) Even in the extremely rare case that a recipient system missed a deletion, it
probably has no effect. The data will not be used by the provider system
and hence should have no effect.
(b) General information is rarely deleted, and even when it is, recipient
systems cannot always act on the data change deletion due to data
constraints or other limitations on those systems e.g. if a airline is deleted,
but a recipient system has a constraint of that airline against historical data
then the deletion cannot be effected without first deleting or amending the
historical data.
(c) ABDS service connections are expected to be 99.99% available. The
chance of recipient systems missing a data deletion is therefore extremely
small as it would have to occur during the 0.01% chance of service
failure/disconnection. As general information deletions are already rare the
possibility is almost non-existent.
(d) Ultra’s simplified “Catch-up Snapshot” approach allows much faster
resynchronisation of client systems after network glitches. A recipient
system can use full-snapshots if required for specific general information.
1.1.4 Subsequent changes
Any change made to category data will be notified to a client who has subscribed
specifying SnapshotThenUpdates. The message will include all non-nil data
elements, plus an indication in RequestType as to if the change is a new entry, a
change to elements, or removal of that entry.
It is expected that changes to general information will be infrequent.
The isCompleteRecord attribute will indicate if all known elements are included, or
if only elements that have changed are included.

4.2 MESSAGE SEQUENCE DIAGRAM

The ABDS operates on an asynchronous event driven notification basis.

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sd ABDS Sequence Diagram (Client/IB)

Client IB

Connection Established

Connection(Accepted)

loop Repeat ev ery minute (configurable)

StatusRequest

StatusResponse

loop For each component requested

ABDSSubscriptionRequest

SubscriptionResponse

SnapshotStart

loop For each data item

ABDSBillingData(Snapshot)

SnapshotEnd

opt zero or more message updates

ABDSBillingData

Close Connection

FIGURE 1: ASYNCHRONOUS MESSAGE SEQUENCES

4.3 NORMAL OPERATION

Once the client has subscribed and the IB has sent the snapshot of data, if
requested (specifying SnapshotThenUpdates), the IB will send subsequent general
information updates in an event driven manner.

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These ABDSBillingData messages include details of Aero Billing data that the
client is interested that has been modified in the provider system
1.1.5 Keepalives
The StatusRequest/StatusResponse handshake is used during the initial stages
of subscription. During normal operation, it is necessary for clients to send a
regular StatusRequest to ensure its ABDS subscription is maintained. The client
should send a StatusRequest message, and the IB will respond with a
StatusResponse, but it is recommended that these are only sent infrequently to
reduce network traffic and unnecessary overheads. The ServiceStatus in the
StatusResponse message indicates whether the client system has a current
subscription to at least one category. If it does then the ServiceStatus will be “Up”,
otherwise this will be “Down”.
1.1.6 Service Cancellation
The ABDS subscription is long running (where the client has specified
SnapshotThenUpdates) and transmission of ABDSBillingData messages will
continue until the client cancels the subscription by sending a CancelSubscription
message or there is some condition which prohibits the normal operation. If either
occurs the IB will send a Cancellation message. Note that sending a
CancelSubscription cancels subscriptions to all categories.

4.4 ERROR DETECTION AND RECOVERY

1.1.7 Error Detection
The client may request the status of the service at any time using the
StatusRequest message. The service can be cancelled by the client (see 1.1.6) if
it detects a problem (e.g. missing message).
The IB may also cancel the service if it detects a problem with the feed of data
from the provider system. If this happens the IB will send the client a Cancellation
message.
If the service is cancelled the client may make a new subscription request.
Please refer to reference [Ref: 6] (Service Frequently Asked Questions) for more
detailed information regarding error handling.

5. BUSINESS RULES AND SECURITY

5.1 COMMON SECURITY FEATURES

The following are common to all services provided by the IB.
(a) Authentication - The IB is configured so that client systems are
authenticated by username/password
(b) Authorisation - each client system has access permissions configured in
the IB. These determine whether the client is permitted to subscribe to the
service.
(c) Use of data privacy techniques such as Transport Layer Security (TLS)
may be used to increase security.

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5.2 SERVICE-SPECIFIC SECURITY FEATURES

The following additional authorisation restrictions for this service can be configured
in the IB:
(a) The data elements which the client system will receive. This technique
allows some data elements to be filtered out by the XSL transformation, to
satisfy commercial sensitivity requirements. Due to the large amounts of
data involved in a snapshot, this should be used with care.

6. TRANSPORT

Typically client systems may access the service via JMS or a Web Service,
however other protocols may be available, for example FTP. The actual
mechanism used and full connection details are specified in the Interface Definition
Document (IDD).

6.1 JAVA MESSAGE SERVICE (JMS)

The Java Message Service (JMS) API is a messaging standard that allows
application components based on the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) to
create, send, receive, and read messages. [Ref: 3]
The JMS API is a standard feature of J2EE. The client system also requires the
Sonic JMS client library.

6.2 WEB SERVICES (WS)

The service may also be accessed via a document/literal wrapped based Web
Service. The WSDL file used to access the service is supplied along with the
service XML schemas.

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7. SAMPLE MESSAGES

The schemas pack for this service contains a selection of sample messages for
ABDS. Although care is taken to ensure the sample messages are valid they
should be used as general guidance only. They do not form part of the formal
specification, since the message structures are defined by the XML Schemas
(XSDs).

7.1 SAMPLE MESSAGE FILES

Example messages are also provided in the SDK (schema definition, ABDS folder).

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: ASynchronous Message sequences.............................................................................8

REFERENCES AND RELATED DOCUMENTS

No. Title Reference Issue
1 Extensible Markup Language (XML) REC-xml-20001006 1.0 (Second Edition)
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml
2 Annotated XML Specification REC-xml-19980210 (10th Feb-1998)
http://www.xml.com/axml/testaxml.htm
3 Java Message Service Specification - version 1.1
http://java.sun.com/products/jms/docs.html
4 UltraIB Abbreviations dev\Products\UltraIB\C Latest
ontrolled\154
5 SDK Overview dev\Products\UltraIB\C Latest
ontrolled\189
6 Service Frequently Asked Questions dev\Products\UltraIB\C Latest
ontrolled\25

AMENDMENT RECORD

Issue Date Reason for change Section(s) amended Author

1 26/02/2013 New Release N/A R. Radhakrishnan

2 7/3/2013 Updated References to References and James Chan

latest document Related Documents
number
3 10/04/13 Reference to Service References and James Chan
FAQ now refer to the Related Documents
‘Latest’ issue
4 27/11/2013 Extended for All Phil Broughton
UltraBilling

APPROVALS

Name Position Signature

Approved by: Paresh Solanki Client Integration Team Leader
Authorised by: Simon Wilkins Chief Technology Officer

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