Apparatus, methods and computer programs provided for metering and
accounting in a commercial e-services infrastructure address the
requirement for handling composite services in which higher-level
services are built using simpler underlying services, each of which may
be autonomously owned and operated. Metering records for each service
underlying a composite service are correlated by a process associated
with the composite service, and then sent to an accounting service where
they can be aggregated. The correlation is performed in a distributed
manner with correlated usage data provided on a per-request basis.
Accounting services can take account of the usage and charges associated
with the underlying services to provide accounting and billing on a
per-request basis or per customer-provider pair for a billing period.