What is XCP?

NetApp XCP is a client software enables fast and reliable any-to-NetApp and NetApp-to-NetApp data migrations and XCP file analytics provides visibility into the file system.

Features

Free!

We've made XCP easy to obtain, deploy and use because in many environments XCP can turn data migration from a painful process into a performance showcase that helps customers save time and effort.

XCP File Analytics

NetApp XCP file analytics is host-based software to scan the file shares, collect and analyzes the data and provide insights into the file system. XCP file analytics works for both NetApp and non-NetApp systems and runs on Linux or Windows host

Fast NFS and CIFS file-based data migration

With XCP you can fully utilize available CPU, network, and storage resources to scan, scope, copy and verify large file trees at maximum speed. With logging, reporting, subdirectory granularity plus three levels of verification (stats, structure and full data), XCP offers unique capabilities to accelerate and improve file tree processing and data migration.

Designed to handle volumes with millions of files

In the NFS world, traditional tools like rsync/find/dd/du use a simple back-and-forth style of serial IO operations so that when there are millions of files to process, waiting for all the round-trips to finish can take weeks. On the other hand, all the XCP features benefit from a built-in NFS client engine that generates parallel streams of asynchronous IO requests. XCP NFS engine significantly mitigates the effects of latency by keeping servers and networks busy all the time, making millions or even billions of files a lot easier to manage.

In the CIFS version of XCP, we have implement the same parallelization algorithms to provide file discovery and transfer at maximum speed.

Scan - discovery and statistics of files and directories

Starting from any directory, XCP recursively reads all the subdirectories and can produce listings and reports in human-readable and machine-readable formats. Thanks to the matching and formating capabilities, the reports can be highly customized to match any reporting needs. Any file attribute such as the access time, owner, group, size, etc. are eligible criterias for filtering out the files in a report. Output formats include CSV, HTML or plain text listing.

Copy - fast parallelized file transfer

The baseline XCP copy transfers the files so that the target can exactly match the source, including hard links, symlinks, special file types, permissions, ownership, NTFS ACLs, and other attributes.

Sync – incremental updates to the target

XCP sync finds all the changes that happened on the source and then performs the necessary operations to update the target and make it exactly match the source.

Verify – thorough verification of target state

By default, XCP verify does a full comparison of target files and directories including NTFS ALCs, attributes and every byte of data, and has options for fast verification, selective verification, and incremental data verification after a sync to minimize cutover times.

Resume - continue an interrupted copy operation

Ran out of space or inodes? Encountered an unexpected error? Just fix the problem and resume your operations. On NFS there's a dedicated resume command to run, while the CIFS operations just pick up natively from where it left off.

Live Data Migration

Flexibility to choose data migration from a live data source or a read-only data source.(currently supporting NFS)

How do I get XCP?

NetApp XCP is a free to use software and license is free. Obtaining a license, installing and configuring XCP is a matter of minutes, and here are the steps:

  • 1 Register a NetApp NSS account, if you don't have one yet
  • 2 Download XCP NFS or XCP CIFS to a host
  • 3 Login and download a license
  • 4 Reference the XCP documentation
  • 5 Deploy the license file to the XCP host

XCP Licenses are configurable to match your needs and environment. Standard licenses require the XCP host to be connected to the Internet so it can access the NetApp site for activation and license control. There's also the option to request offline licenses for closed environments that can't access the Internet. Licenses are instantly available for download.

Contact details

Need Help? If you need help with the registration or licensing, contact the XCP license team via email here: ng-xcp-license@netapp.com.

For any technical queries/issues related to XCP, contact NetApp Global Support https://www.netapp.com/company/contact-us/support/.