After service providers publish services in the Compute Nest console, they can publish the services as Alibaba Cloud Marketplace products. This way, customers can purchase the Compute Nest services in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace. Service providers can specify an appropriate sales mode for their services based on service features.
One-time and subscription sales modes
Compute Nest services support one-time and subscription sales modes. Both modes require prepayment for access based on duration. A one-time purchase grants permanent access, effectively buying unlimited time. Subscriptions, on the other hand, grant access for a specific period such as a month or a year and require renewal for continued access. For more information, see Publish a service as a one-time sales Alibaba Cloud Marketplace product and Publish a service as a subscription Alibaba Cloud Marketplace product.
Billing
One-time and subscription sales modes allow service providers to define multiple specifications at different prices and additional billable items. This enables flexible billing. For example, a piece of software is available in basic edition and advanced edition at different prices. The software is charged based on the number of servers and the server fee varies based on the edition. In this case, the service provider can define a specification for each edition and define the number of servers as an additional billable item. When customers purchase the software, the price varies based on the edition and number of servers that they specify.
Subscription expiration check
For subscription-based software, access expires if customers do not renew the subscription before the subscription period ends. Compute Nest provides a built-in expiration check that works even offline. This check uses an internal mechanism that requires no external connectivity. API calls for expiration checks support digital signatures to prevent tampering and potential losses. The API also returns custom metadata of services.
Service providers can flexibly use the returned custom metadata. For example, they can use it to identify product specifications and provide services based on the specifications.
Subscription period binding
When customers purchase Compute Nest services in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace, they can independently specify subscription periods for software and cloud resources, potentially leading to discrepancies. Compute Nest offers subscription period binding for purchases made in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace. When customers purchase a Compute Nest service, they need to only specify the subscription period of the software. The specified subscription period is automatically applied to the associated cloud resources, ensuring synchronized billing. For more information, see Associate the billing configurations of a service with those of the required resources of the service.
Configuration change
After a service instance is created, customers can modify its specifications and parameters. For example, if a customer initially purchased a piece of software of the basic edition, as described in the Billing section of this topic, and finds that the basic edition no longer meets business requirements, the customer can upgrade the software to the advanced edition. After the upgrade, the customer is charged based on the advanced edition. If the customer finds that the number of servers no longer meets business requirements, the customer can add more servers as needed. Because the number of servers is an additional billable item, the customer needs to pay for each additional server. For more information, see Change the configurations of a service instance in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace.