Integration overview

Prerequisites

• Build your own platform.

• Create an Alibaba Cloud account. For more information, see How to sign up with Alibaba Cloud.

• Apply for the Virtual Operator Partner business online.

• Sign a business contract.

Integration solutions

To build a complete cloud platform, Virtual Operator Partners must integrate their own platform, which includes modules for customer management and billing, with Alibaba Cloud services. These services cover account management, secure access, purchasing and managing cloud resources, billing, metering data, ICP filing, message notifications, and ticket escalation. The integrated platform supports the entire customer lifecycle, from registration and purchasing to activation, management, payment, and after-sales service. Alternatively, you can choose to integrate only Alibaba Cloud account management and secure access. This allows customers to register on the Virtual Operator platform and then access Alibaba Cloud to purchase and manage resources without logging on again.

The Virtual Operator integration solution enables partners to integrate and resell Alibaba Cloud resources. This integration supports the following two solutions:

• Service suite integration

  Alibaba Cloud provides an integrated service suite that lets you embed features such as sales, management, ICP filing, and fee queries into your partner platform. This solution requires less integration effort and improves the customer experience. This lets you focus on customer management and your core business.

  

• API integration

  If you have specific requirements, such as product encapsulation or custom partner pricing, you can develop the product sales page and ICP filing service by integrating cloud product instance APIs. Because the console features are complex, we recommend that you use the service suite to integrate the console, even if you choose the API integration solution.

The main difference between the two solutions is the integration method for the sales page, ICP filing service, and User Center. In the service suite solution, these components are integrated as services. In the API integration solution, you must call the relevant sales, ICP filing service, and order/bill APIs from Alibaba Cloud to develop the integration.

Service suite

Alibaba Cloud provides modularized BUY and console pages for Virtual Operator Partners. These pages can be adapted for different cloud products. You can embed these pages using an iframe. The underlying calls use OpenAPI. This solution eliminates the need for partners to develop these modules.

The service suite integration solution reduces the development workload and accelerates the development process. Because the entire suite uses the same business standards as Alibaba Cloud, it does not support custom configurations.

OpenAPI integration

All integrated products use a unified set of APIs to handle transactions such as creating, upgrading, downgrading, and releasing instances.

The business logic for the CONSOLE page is highly complex. Developing it independently requires significant effort and is not recommended.

You can use APIs to develop your own BUY and CONSOLE pages.

API integration and service suites have complementary strengths and weaknesses.

During integration, you must choose a solution for each product based on your business attributes. If you do not have special requirements, we recommend using the service suite.

You can also use the service suite in the early stages of the project and then switch to a self-developed BUY page after you complete the development.

Examples of special requirements:

1. A partner wants to bundle their own products, such as ECS instances, with an Alibaba Cloud Virtual Operator channel product, such as a VPC, and sell the bundle to end customers. The service suite does not support this type of custom business policy. You must use the API solution to implement this feature.

2. A partner wants to set custom prices for Alibaba Cloud Virtual Operator channel products. The prices in the service suite are the same as the official Alibaba Cloud prices and cannot be customized. You must use the API solution to implement custom pricing.

Integration procedure

For SDK references, see the relevant reference documents.

The following figure shows the integration procedure for the Virtual Operator Platform and Alibaba Cloud. In the figure, you can click an integration step to open the documentation about the API call scenarios or instructions for that step. You can also click an API name to open the corresponding API reference.

For information about how to call APIs for Virtual Operator Platform integration, see Request structure, Common parameters, and Signature mechanism.

• After-sales and other API integration
  • Message Service
    • ReceiveMessage
  • Ticket service (call scenarios)
    • Add
    • QuestionReply
    • QuestionListNote
    • QuestionList
    • getOSSTempAuthor
    • getAttachTempURL

Request a test account

Before you launch your sales business, you can apply for a test account.

You can use a test account to test the following services:

• Create or query customer accounts

• Identity verification

• Secure access

• OpenAPI calls

To activate a test account, follow these steps:

1. Register an Alibaba Cloud account and complete identity verification. For more information, see How to sign up with Alibaba Cloud and Enterprise identity verification.

2. Contact an Alibaba Cloud employee to apply for a test account on your behalf.

Integration project

After you complete the account application and the Virtual Operator onboarding application, the integration phase begins. We will assign a Virtual Operator contact person to help you complete this process until the project is online and ready for commercial use.

During this process, you must also complete the integration procedure and product access and testing on the APS platform.

Integration procedure on the Aliyun Partner Service platform.

Product authorization application on the Aliyun Partner Service platform.