To use the Offer service API effectively, you should understand several key concepts.
Offering
An offering is a configuration of products that a user can purchase for a certain price. It is a collection of products, product characteristics, and product prices.
Product
A product is a tangible or intangible item that is sold to a customer.
Product characteristic
A product characteristic provides additional information about a product. It follows the format Characteristic key : Characteristic value. Product characteristics are mainly intended to be used to configure information from external applications that drive product configuration.
Commit grid
A commit grid is a matrix that indicates the discounts that are available per offering and length of commitment.
Rackspace commit grids can be classified into the following types.
Standard commit grid
A standard commit grid offers pre-defined discounts based on the length of the customer’s commitment. By default, Rackspace applies a standard commit grid to new accounts.
Custom commit grid
A custom commit grid offers customized discounts based on a customer’s request. A payload for the custom commit grid is created and posted to the Offer Service with a unique ID. A customer account that is associated with a specific geographic region (such as USA or UK) can have only one commit grid applied to it.
Volume grid
A volume grid is a matrix that indicates the discounts that can be applied based on the volume of cloud services usage. A volume grid is only used when an overflow occurs, such as when a customer exceeds the monthly maximum amount (maxAmount) that is associated with the commitment.
Rackspace has the following types of volume discount grids:
Standard volume grid
A standard volume grid offers pre-defined discounts based on the volume of cloud services usage. If an overflow occurs, Rackspace applies a standard volume grid to the account by default.
Custom volume grid
A custom volume grid offers customized volume discounts. Custom volume grids are further classified into the following types:
- Preset grid: Offers customized volume discounts.
- Zero-preset grid: No discount is applied to the account. This scenario occurs only when a customer waives a volume discount in favor of a better custom commit grid discount.