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Arc XP's content migration process

When migrating content from an external CMS to Arc XP, it's important that you understand the entire process and requirements.

Most of your migration work happens through the Migration Center API, but you use the Migration Center application within Arc XP to create and manage content mappings in ANS Maps.

This guide provides a holistic understanding of the migration process and the items you must be familiar with.

Prerequisites to migrating content

Understanding Arc Native Specification (ANS)

ANS is Arc XP's standardized JSON-based content format, which includes various content elements such as headlines, body text, images, metadata, and more. You must be familiar with ANS because all content ingested into Arc XP must conform to its schema.

For more information, see:

Planning your migration

Before initiating the migration, ensure you complete the following items:

  • Content audit - identify the volume and types of content to migrate.

  • Sample selection - choose a representative sample (for example, 100 stories) encompassing various content types and complexities for testing.

  • Data cleanup - review and clean legacy data, removing redundant tags, outdated content, and unnecessary authors.

  • Mapping decisions - determine which content elements you want to migrate and how they map to ANS fields.

Content mapping

Mapping your content involves correlating fields from your legacy CMS to ANS fields. This process is critical and may involve the following items:

  • Correlating fields - creating a matrix or document that maps legacy fields to ANS fields.

  • Handling complex content - identifying content requiring special handling or transformation logic.

  • Using additional properties - for data that doesn't directly map to ANS, use the additional_properties field to store custom data.

You can use the ANS Maps tools to create your content mapping. See Managing ANS maps.

Building the adapter

An adapter is custom software developed to:

  • extract content from your legacy CMS or Migration Center's archive.

  • transform content into ANS format based on the mapping.

  • ingest the transformed ANS content to Arc XP through the Migration Center API.

  • monitor the status of content through the migration pipeline.

Migration Center pipeline

Migration process

The migration pipeline uses several stages:

  1. Archiving source content (optional)

    • Store a copy of source content in Migration Center for transformation.

    • This step can be useful if access to the legacy CMS is limited or will be discontinued.

  2. Transforming content to ANS

    • Use the adapter or the ANS Maps tool to convert content to ANS format.

    • Ensure the transformed content adheres to the ANS schema.

  3. Ingesting ANS content

    • Send the ANS content to the Migration Center API.

    • Each request should include a complete ANS object and may include additional fields, like circulations, operations, and arcAdditionalProperties.

  4. Pipeline processing

    • Migration Center validates the ANS content.

    • Upon successful validation, content is queued and then processed into the appropriate Arc XP application.

  5. Status monitoring

    • Track content status through various stages: Pending, Queued, Processing, Success, Circulated, Published, ValidationFailed, and failure statuses like FailStory or FailPhoto.

    • Use the Reporting API to query statuses and retrieve error messages if applicable.

Migration Center JSON structure

When sending content to Migration Center, the JSON payload should follow this structure:

{
  "ANS": { /* ANS object */ },
  "circulations": [ /* Optional: circulation data for stories */ ],
  "operations": [ /* Optional: scheduled operations */ ],
  "arcAdditionalProperties": {
    "story": { /* Additional instructions for stories */ },
    "video": { /* Additional instructions for videos */ }
  }
}

  • The ANS field must contain the complete ANS object.

  • circulations and operations are primarily used for content.

  • arcAdditionalProperties can include instructions like immediate publishing upon ingestion.

Reporting and monitoring

Migration Center provides APIs to monitor the migration process. See the Migration Center API documentation to identify endpoints to monitor the progress of content through the pipeline and to identify and troubleshoot errors.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Migration Center commits to the following SLAs for the APIs.

SLA

Inbound requests throughput

800 requests per minute

Outbound documents throughput

110 stories per minute*

180 images or videos per minute

180 authors or tags per minute

Average API response time

600 milliseconds

Average error rate for inbound requests

1%

*You can increase story ingestion rates if your organization has a higher draft API rate limit.

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