The six key steps to AEM architecture

AEM ARCHITECTURE
The six key steps to create a solid AEM solution

The six key steps
An overall
picture
Feature
mapping
The content
structure
The
integration
Deployment
model
Routine
maintenance
Create Perform Simplify
Trash out Finalize the Plan for

THE OVERALL PICTURE
Get it right…

Getting the overall picture right
 Its important to create an overall picture of the solution and
finalize where AEM fits in this overall solution before proceeding
further
 Decide on the boundary of each of the system in the overall
scope and finalize the responsibility of each
 Analyze the system separately from authoring point of view and
publish point of view. The overall layout you foresee for author
might be very different from that of publish
 The role of AEM in the overall system solution can fall into one
of the following three categories

AEM as umbrella system
A standalone AEM implementation or AEM as the wrapper system that
integrates with other systems and delivers the site
 AEM most often would be
the umbrella system
integrating with other
systems to serve the
functionality
 In this configuration AEM
takes the responsibility of
integrating with other
systems to provide
integrated functionality
AEM
A B C
X
AEM as umbrella system

AEM as provider system
Beware of the impact on AEM internal functionalities when using AEM as
provider system
 AEM would very well be
one of the backend system
providing services to other
systems
 Beware of the AEM
internal working details
when deploying AEM in
this mode
 E.g., how can AEM deliver
targeted content as
service???
System X
B C
A
AEM as provider system
AEM

AEM as independent system in the stack
 AEM could also be an
independent system
providing services to be
consumed directly from the
client devices
 AJAX calls directly to AEM
to pull content (becoming
popular in sites
implementing client MVC
frameworks)
 Beware of the security
implications when deploying
in this mode
System X
B CA
AEM as independent system
AEM

The de facto layers in the eco system
 Always consider the de facto layers
in the eco system
 These are almost always there and
has to be planned for in the
overall layout
 With AEM, these layers impacts
some of the key decisions made
 Remember AEM has dispatcher
and make attempt to cache
everything that goes out of AEM
 Anything that’s cached in
dispatcher can be cached in CDN
The de facto layers
Content Delivery Networks
Data centers
Load Balancers
Web servers

FEATURE MAPPING
Product selection and mapping the features needed to the
capabilities

AEM only vs. AEM + others
List out all the features needed and map it to the capabilities
 Consider all the features
required for the overall solution.
Features include capabilities like
Security, Multi-lingual, Analytics,
Search, Targeting, so on…
 AEM provides capabilities for
most of these features which
may or may not suffice for the
given requirement
 Beware leveraging some of
these features from AEM might
require additional licensing
Validate objectively
Adobe would try to goad you into
using their stack. While using
products from the same suite has its
advantages, it might have serious
limitations especially when your
overall solution is a complex mix of
multiple systems

Validate with POC’s
You might need few proof of concepts if you are choosing different products to
complete the feature requirements
 Some of the functionalities within AEM are tightly integrated
 For example, AEM targeting depends on campaign management and
Profiles. In case you make a choice to use Profile from a different
system and targeting from AEM, be sure that the fitment is correct
 Work of the details to the most granular level possible at this stage
 Its wise to plan few proof of concepts to validate any assumptions
that are taken

CONTENT STRUCTURE
Almost all design aspects link back to the content structure

Content structure
Almost all minor design aspects link back to the content structure
 The content structure impacts
security design, template
finalization, component visibility,
content flow, …
 Remember content stored in JCR in
hierarchical
 Keep the content structure as
simple as possible and contain
cross linking of content to the
minimal
 Keep the structure flexible…
provide to maintain more
languages, companies,
departments…
Some technical stuff to remember
 There are no rigid primary keys in
JCR storage. Do not depend on
them
 You cannot store null values.
Property not present means value
is null or empty or non-existent
 Design to keep the queries to run
on nodes nested as deep as
possible in the JCR structure

INTEGRATION
Correct integration approach is the key to the success of the
implementation

Integration approaches
Move the integration as close to the browser as possible
Integrate in the browser: Possible
when the services to be integrated
with are exposed over http and
available for consumption from the
browser
Integration at the OSGI: Use
this for logic intensive
integration. Create wrapper
bundles to be consumed from
multiple places
Integrate at the dispatcher:
Possible when the services to be
integrated with are available over
http; but are not exposed to the
browser
Integrate at the Sling layer:
Maintain caution to avoid making
this layer logic intensive. Simple
REST end points can be consumed
at sling layer

When AEM exposes services
Expose them as REST Services
Logic in OSGI
Sling servlet as gateway
Make it RESTful
Through dispatcher
Implementation Exposing

Less frequently changing content
Use batch jobs to periodically pull content into AEM
Batch job to pull
content periodically
and store it within
AEM
Expose
content for
AEM
consumption

DEPLOYMENT MODEL
Plan the deployment model well in advance…

Deployment drives some design choices
The big Mongo vs. Tar war in AEM 6.1… and Tar wins hands down

MAINTENANCE
Remember: AEM will breakdown if maintenance activities
are not carried out periodically

Backup, Purge, Compact
A lot happens inside AEM and is prone to corruption if not maintained
properly
Backup Purge Compact
 AEM backup is
copying the file system
 Repository structure to
align with backup
policy
 Provision additional
systems to run backup
on if preferred
 Plan separate backups
for author and publish
 Version, workflows
and audit logs needs
to be purged
 Finalize purge policy
and configure purge
activities
 The repository would
quickly grow to a
huge size if not for
purging
 This requires AEM
downtime.
 Best approach is to do
it on one instance and
clone that instance to
other instances
(publish)
 Keep the publish
instance homogenous
(identical clones)

THANK YOU
Feedback and suggestions welcome. Please write to ashokkumar_ta /
ashokkumar.ta@gmail.com

The six key steps to AEM architecture

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