BlueXP classification is a cloud offering that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven technology to help you understand data context and identify sensitive data across your storage systems. The systems can be working environments that you've added to the BlueXP Canvas and many types of data sources that BlueXP classification can access over your networks. See the full list below.

BlueXP classification provides pre-defined parameters (such as sensitive information types and categories) to address new data compliance regulations for data privacy and sensitivity, such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and more.

BlueXP classification deploys another layer of Artificial Intelligence alongside your BlueXP system and storage systems. It then scans the data on volumes, buckets, databases, and other storage accounts and indexes the data insights that are found. BlueXP classification leverages both artificial intelligence and natural language processing, as opposed to alternative solutions that are commonly built around regular expressions and pattern matching.

BlueXP classification uses AI to provide contextual understanding of data for accurate detection and classification. It is driven by AI because it is designed for modern data types and scale. It also understands data context in order to provide strong, accurate, discovery and classification.

Learn more about how BlueXP classification works.

Learn more about the use cases for BlueXP classification.

BlueXP classification deploys a single server, or cluster, wherever you choose — in the cloud or on premises. The servers connect via standard protocols to the data sources and index the findings in an Elasticsearch cluster, which is also deployed on the same servers. This allows support for multi-cloud, cross-cloud, private cloud, and on-premises environments.

BlueXP classification operates as part of BlueXP and supports AWS, Azure, and GCP. This provides your organization with unified privacy visibility across different cloud providers.

BlueXP supports REST API capabilities for its services. If BlueXP isn't the preferred point of management, services such as BlueXP classification can also be used via a REST API. Every user action has a REST API that can be integrated with third-party systems. See BlueXP classification APIs for details.

Yes, BlueXP and BlueXP classification are available from the AWS, Azure, and GCP marketplaces.

While the initial scan of your data might take a little bit of time, subsequent scans only inspect the incremental changes, which reduces system scan times. BlueXP classification scans your data continuously in a round-robin fashion, six repositories at a time, so that all changed data is classified very quickly.

Learn how scans work.

Note that BlueXP classification scans databases only once per day - databases are not continuously scanned like other data sources.

Data scans have a negligible impact on your storage systems and on your data. However, if you are concerned with even a very small impact, you can configure BlueXP classification to perform "slow" scans. See how to reduce the scan speed.

BlueXP classification offers extensive search capabilities that make it easy to search for a specific file or piece of data across all connected sources. BlueXP classification empowers users to search deeper than just what the metadata reflects. It is a language-agnostic service that can also read the files and analyze a multitude of sensitive data types, such as names and IDs. For example, users can search across both structured and unstructured data stores to find data that may have leaked from databases to user files, in violation of corporate policy. Searches can be saved for later, and policies can be created to search and take action on the results at a set frequency.

Once the files of interest are found, characteristics can be listed, including tags, working environment account, bucket, file path, category (from classification), file size, last modified, permission status, duplicates, sensitivity level, personal data, sensitive data types within the file, owner, file type, file size, created time, file hash, whether the data was assigned to someone seeking their attention, and more. Filters can be applied to screen out characteristics that are not pertinent. BlueXP classification also has RBAC controls to allow files to be moved or deleted, if the right permissions are present. If the right permissions are not present, the tasks can be assigned to someone in the organization who does have the right permissions.

Data sources can be represented visually, and relationships defined and depicted graphically. For example, admins can see all stale, duplicate, and non-business-related data across data sources throughout the enterprise (on-premises systems, databases, file shares, S3 stores, OneDrive, etc.). They can then copy, move, delete, and manage data to optimize storage costs and reduce risk. Users can reduce risk by seeing what sensitive data might be exposed, and they can create jobs to manage permissions for strong data protection. BlueXP classification also classifies all the different types of data, so admins can investigate data by type and see what actions have been taken on the data, and when.

Yes. The information offered by BlueXP classification can be relevant to other stakeholders in your organizations, so we enable you to generate reports to share the insights. The following reports are available for BlueXP classification:

Scan performance can vary based on the network bandwidth and the average file size in your environment. It can also depend on the size characteristics of the host system (either in the cloud or on-premises). See The BlueXP classification instance and Deploying BlueXP classification for more information.

When initially adding new data sources you can also choose to only perform a "mapping" scan instead of a full "classification" scan. Mapping can be done on your data sources very quickly because it does not access files to see the data inside. See the difference between a mapping and classification scan.

First you need to deploy an instance of BlueXP classification in BlueXP, or on an on-premises system. Once the instance is running, you can enable the service on existing working environments, databases, and other data sources from the Configuration tab or by selecting a specific working environment.

Learn how to get started.

You can disable BlueXP classification from scanning an individual working environment, database, file share group, OneDrive account, or SharePoint account from the BlueXP classification Configuration page.

Learn more.

BlueXP classification provides out-of-the-box insights to your data. These insights can be extracted and used for your organization's needs.

Additionally, BlueXP classification provides many ways for you to add a custom list of "personal data" that BlueXP classification will identify in scans, giving you the full picture about where potentially sensitive data resides in all your organizations' files.

Learn more.

Yes. If you want BlueXP classification to exclude scanning data that resides in certain data source directories, you can provide that list to the classification engine. After you apply that change, BlueXP classification will exclude scanning data in the specified directories.

Learn more.

No. BlueXP classification does not scan snapshots because the content is identical to the content in the volume.

When BlueXP classification scans volumes that have cold data tiered to object storage, it scans all of the data—​data that's on local disks and cold data tiered to object storage. This is also true for non-NetApp products that implement tiering.

The scan doesn't heat up the cold data—​it stays cold and remains in object storage.

Yes. In conjunction with the Policies feature, you can send email alerts to BlueXP users (daily, weekly, or monthly), or any other email address, when a Policy returns results so you can get notifications to protect your data. Learn more about Policies.

You can also download status reports from the Governance page and Investigation page that you can share internally in your organization.

Yes. You can manage AIP labels in the files that BlueXP classification is scanning if you have subscribed to Azure Information Protection (AIP). You can view the labels that are already assigned to files, add labels to files, and change existing labels.

Learn more.

BlueXP classification can scan data from working environments that you've added to the BlueXP Canvas and from many types of structured and unstructured data sources that BlueXP classification can access over your networks.

Working environments:

Data sources:

BlueXP classification supports NFS versions 3.x, and CIFS versions 1.x, 2.0, 2.1, and 3.0.

BlueXP classification is supported when the Connector is deployed in a Government region (AWS GovCloud, Azure Gov, or Azure DoD) - also known as "Restricted mode". When deployed in this manner, BlueXP classification has the following restrictions:

BlueXP classification can only scan data from data sources that are local to the on-premises site. At this time, BlueXP classification can scan the following local data sources in "Private mode" - also known as a "dark" site:

BlueXP classification scans all files for category and metadata insights, and displays all file types in the file types section of the dashboard.

When BlueXP classification detects Personal Identifiable Information (PII), or when it performs a DSAR search, only the following file formats are supported:

.CSV, .DCM, .DICOM, .DOC, .DOCX, .JSON, .PDF, .PPTX, .RTF, .TXT, .XLS, .XLSX, Docs, Sheets, and Slides

BlueXP classification enables you to run a general "mapping" scan or a full "classification" scan on your data sources. Mapping provides only a high-level overview of your data, whereas Classification provides deep-level scanning of your data. Mapping can be done on your data sources very quickly because it does not access files to see the data inside.

BlueXP classification captures metadata such as: file name, permissions, creation time, last access, and last modification. This includes all of the metadata that appears in the Data Investigation Details page and in Data Investigation Reports.

BlueXP classification can identify many types of private data such as personal data and sensitive personal data. For details about private data, refer to Categories of private data that BlueXP classification scans.

Yes, BlueXP classification is fully integrated with BlueXP. BlueXP users can only see information for the working environments they are eligible to view according to their workspace privileges.

Additionally, if you want to allow certain users to just view BlueXP classification scan results without having the ability to manage BlueXP classification settings, you can assign those users the Cloud Compliance Viewer role.

Learn more.

No. The private data sent between your browser and the BlueXP classification instance are secured with end-to-end encryption using TLS 1.2, which means NetApp and third parties can't read it. BlueXP classification won't share any data or results with NetApp unless you request and approve access.

The data that is scanned stays within your environment.

NetApp does not have access to sensitive data and does not display it in the UI. Sensitive data is masked, for example, the last four numbers are displayed for credit card information.

Scan results are stored in Elasticsearch within your BlueXP classification instance.

BlueXP classification accesses data stored in Elasticsearch through API calls, which require authentication and are encrypted using AES-128. Accessing Elasticsearch directly requires root access.

The cost to use BlueXP classification depends on the amount of data that you're scanning. The first 1 TB of data that BlueXP classification scans in a BlueXP workspace is free for 30 days. After reaching either limit, you'll need one of the following to continue scanning data:

See pricing for details.

If you reach a BYOL capacity limit, BlueXP classification continues to run, but access to the Dashboards is blocked so that you can't view information about any of your scanned data. Only the Configuration page is available in case you want to reduce the number of volumes being scanned to potentially bring your capacity usage under the license limit. You must renew your BYOL license to regain full access to BlueXP classification.

The Connector is software running on a compute instance either within your cloud account, or on-premises, that enables BlueXP to securely manage cloud resources. You must deploy a Connector to use BlueXP classification.

So if you have data in many of these locations, you may need to use multiple Connectors.

BlueXP classification itself doesn't retrieve storage credentials. Instead, they are stored within the BlueXP Connector.

BlueXP classification uses data plane credentials, for example, CIFS credentials to mount shares before scanning.

Yes. You can deploy the Connector on-premises on a Linux host in your network or on a host in the cloud. If you're planning to deploy BlueXP classification on-premises, then you may want to install the Connector on-premises as well; but it's not required.

Yes, BlueXP classification communicates with the BlueXP Connector using HTTP.

Yes, that's also supported. You can deploy the Connector on an on-premises Linux host that doesn't have internet access. This is also known as "Private mode". Then you can discover on-premises ONTAP clusters and other local data sources and scan the data using BlueXP classification.

BlueXP allows the user to scan and report on systems virtually anywhere, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. BlueXP classification is normally deployed using a SaaS model, in which the service is enabled via the BlueXP interface and requires no hardware or software installation. Even in this click-and-run deployment mode, data management can be done regardless of whether the data stores are on premises or in the public cloud.

When deployed in the cloud:

Note that you can deploy BlueXP classification on a system with fewer CPUs and less RAM, but there are limitations when using these systems. See Using a smaller instance type for details.

Learn more about how BlueXP classification works.

Yes. You can install BlueXP classification software on a Linux host that has internet access in your network or in the cloud. Everything works the same and you continue to manage your scan configuration and results through BlueXP. See Deploying BlueXP classification on premises for system requirements and installation details.

Yes, that's also supported. You can deploy BlueXP classification in an on-premises site that doesn't have internet access for completely secure sites.