After a service provider publishes a service in the Compute Nest console, they can list it as a product in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace. This integrates the Compute Nest service with the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace transaction process. Service providers can also set different sales modes based on service attributes to simplify the selection and purchase process for users.
One-time and subscription sales
One-time and subscription sales are both upfront payment methods based on a time dimension. A one-time purchase is a permanent buyout. A subscription is a purchase for a fixed period, such as a year or a month, and requires periodic renewal. For more information, see One-time sales and Subscription-based sales.
Billing capability
One-time and subscription sales allow you to define different product specifications and additional billable items for flexible billing. For example, a software product might have Basic and Premium editions at different prices. If each edition is billed based on the number of servers and the server fees vary, the Basic and Premium editions are considered different product specifications, and the number of servers is an additional billable item. The price changes when a user switches between the Basic and Premium editions or changes the number of servers.
Expiration check capability
If a user does not renew a software subscription on time, the software expires. Compute Nest provides a feature to check for software expiration. This check is an internal process that can be completed offline. The API for this scenario includes a digital signature feature to prevent losses from malicious request tampering. It also supports custom metadata. For more information, see CheckOutLicense - Authenticate the validity of a service instance.
Service providers can flexibly use custom metadata. For example, they can use it to identify product specifications and provide services that match those specifications.
Billing period binding capability
When a user purchases a service in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace, the billing periods for the software and the cloud resources can be set separately, which can result in inconsistencies. Compute Nest provides a billing period binding feature. With this feature, the user only needs to select the software subscription duration. The cloud resource subscription duration then automatically syncs with the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace subscription duration, ensuring the two periods are consistent. For more information, see Bind software and resource billing configurations in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace.
Upgrade and downgrade capability
After an instance is created, users can change the product specifications and instance parameters. For example, as mentioned in the Billing capability section, if users find that the configuration of the Basic Edition software does not meet their business requirements, they can upgrade from the Basic Edition to the Premium Edition. After the upgrade, they are charged based on the pricing for the Premium Edition. If users find that the number of servers is insufficient for their business requirements, they can increase the number of servers. Because the number of servers is an additional billable item, the user must pay the fees for the additional servers. For more information, see Upgrade or downgrade a service in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace.