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Arc XP's content migration process

When migrating data from an external format to Arc XP's ANS schema using Migration Center, the Migration Center API handles most of the task. The Migration Center application within Arc XP helps manage request load and volume and provides reporting on your ANS content mappings during active migrations.

This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the migration process and the key concepts you must be familiar with for a successful integration.

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  • Data cleanup - review and clean legacy data, removing redundant tags, outdated content, and unnecessary authors.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 involves 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 that you own and operate. It serves as the middle ware between your source system and Arc XP. The adapt should:

  • 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. Staging source content (optional)

    Temporarily store external source content in Migration Center for transformation. This is useful when direct access to the legacy CMS is limited or will be discontinued.

  2. Loading content into Migration Center

    • Using ANS Maps - Your adapter loads source content, and Migration Center transforms it into ANS format using predefined mappings.

    • Sending transformed content directly - Your adapter sends complete ANS objects directly to the Migration Center API. Each request may include an ANS object and, optionally, circulations, operations, and arcAdditionalProperties

  3. Pipeline processing

    Migration Center validates ANS content. Upon success, content is queued and processed into the appropriate Arc XP application.

  4. Status monitoring

    Track content status through various states: Pending, Queued, Processing, Success, Circulated, and Published. Failure states include ValidationFailed, FailStory,or FailPhoto.

    Use the Reporting API to query status and retrieve error messages as needed.

Migration Center JSON structure

When sending content to Migration Center, the JSON payload must 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 (optional) are primarily used for content lifecycle events.

  • arcAdditionalProperties (optional) 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.

Migration Center API rate limits

Inbound rate limit

The inbound rate limit defines how many requests you can send to the Migration Center API per minute. This rate is fixed.

The inbound rate limit is 800 requests per minute.

Note

Read and write requests share this limit. Prioritize your requests based on your migration strategy.

Outbound rate limit

The outbound rate limit is the rate at which Migration Center sends content into Arc XP's content administration APIs. These rates are adjustable but depend on the target system's capacity and require coordination with Arc XP.

Note

Payload size and operational complexity (for example, circulation and publishing) can slow performance. These are baseline maximum rates and not guarantees that you may reach that rate.

ANS Type

Rate

Domain

story

~20-25 per minute

Draft API

photo

~100 per minute

Photo Center

gallery

~100 per minute

Photo Center

video

~100 per minute

Video Center

tag

~100 per minute

Tags API

author

~100 per minute

Author API

You must coordinate outbound rate adjustments with Arc XP. Contact Arc XP Customer Support. Rate increases are not guaranteed and depend on infrastructure usage and provisioning.