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| Component Front-End to Back | Purpose | Summary | Notes | Key Reading Matrial | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Content Delivery Network | ||||||||||
| Akamai | CDN (Content Distribution Network) | |||||||||
| Content Management System | ||||||||||
| Apache Web Server with Adobe Dispatcher Module | Web Server, Caching and Load Balancing | Caches into static content pages generated by CMS to improve performance. The Adobe Dispatcher Module is proprietary Adobe software. | The Adobe Dispatcher module loads like any other Apache module but is closed source.
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| AEM Publisher | CMS Publisher | Assembles and serves the published content as static html. | ||||||||
| Content Repository | CMS Database Cache | See Content. Repository further below AEM Instance for Author for details. | ||||||||
| AEM Instance for Author | CMS Author | Create, upload and edit content and to administer the website. Powered as follows,
Has two user interfaces, old and new (add more to this later). | If possible, ensure only available within the Intranet. | |||||||
| Content Repository | CMS Database | NoSQL File based data storage for content-centric applications, implementing Content Repository API for Java Technology (JCR 2.0). Uses Apache Jackrabbit as JCR implementation and Apache Jackrabbit Oak as module manager (searching, versioning, transactions, etc.) of repository with additional customization on top of Oak called CRX3 (Code Repository Extreme 3) to add features (synchronous updates, key-value persistence, clustering, static extension, individual workspace index). This finally communicates to a MK (MicroKernel). Default and recommended storage format is to use tar files TARMK (Tar Micro Kernel) which also offers Cold Standby to sync repositories. MongoDB is an alternative data storage introduced in AEM 6.0 which provides active site redundancy. However, Adobe does not yet endorse full fledged as of 6.0 for active site redundancy (ie sharding support was problematic and dropped). Adobes only reason to recommend MongoDB is if author instance has load requiring one instance. Even then, a larger Author machine likely the better solutionAlternative is MongoDB. More details on selection further down in Technical Notes. |
| |||||||
| Deep Content Management Technology Components | ||||||||||
| TarMK | ||||||||||
| Mongo | Sharding no longer supported. Only added as of 6.1. | |||||||||
| Solr powered by Lucene | Native System Search Engine | Used by the native system to perform lookups and performs indexing. | ||||||||
| Solr powered by Lucene | Site Search Engine | Bonsai Framework evaluation is to not use embedded and keep the CMS function purely to Authoring. Instead use an external Solr based search engine. | ||||||||
| CMS Author Database | ||||||||||
| Microsoft AD | Centralized Authentication Directory | Optional and should fail back to local authentication repository if AD fails. Currently AEM does not support one-time email users. As such decision is to not use AD in a large org to quickly provision Business users in and out of the system. Confirm users deactivated do not take license seats. Check if deleted users can be recreated with same GUID to pass audit and compliance. | ||||||||
| CRXDE Lite | Adobe's web user interface to interface with Apache Sling. CRXDE Lite looks to be Adobe's own extension sitting on top of Apache Sling Web Console and Apache Felix Web Console. | |||||||||
| Apache Felix | Implementation of OSGi Specification | Can redeploy code pieces without requiring a restart. Each bundle requires a unique name space. Manages service discovery and registry. | ||||||||
| Apache Sling | Control to expose and access resources. | REST Architecture. | ||||||||
| JCR | Object Oriented Database | |||||||||
| JackRabbit | Handles multi version control with refresh function to handle real-time updates. | |||||||||
| Microkernel | Provides an abstraction layer for the storage of content in JSON. | |||||||||
| Vault | Extract out of TarMK for normal file system. | |||||||||
| Jetty | Container | Ahhh... not super clear but in Error 404 starting up noticed it's powered by Jetty. | ||||||||
| Granite | ||||||||||
| Roy Fielding | http specifications, sling, JSOP Thesis | |||||||||
| David N | JCR | |||||||||
Note to incorporate more clarity from this article in https://www.terrabeata.com/2015/03/aem-interview-questions-what-is-the-technology-stack-of-adobe-experience-manager/ Also more good stuff in this technical deep dive http://dev.day.com/content/ddc/en/gems/technical-deep-dive-of-the-aem-6-platform.html | ||||||||||
| Site Search | ||||||||||
| Solr powered by Lucene | Website Search | Keep distinct from CMS system. Some products offer as a plugin, but only implement if outside of the CMS system for load and security purposes. | ||||||||
Is the Adobe Dispatcher module what also receives cache expirey information from the Publisher?...
Technical Notes
General
AEM 6.x with Apache Sling uses TarMK with Apache Jackrabbit Oak. Key aspect of speed is the combination deserializes the repository into memory. It is not caching the repository in memory. The repository exists in memory and uses the tar files to serialize and persist the data. It will deserialize the entire repository into memory if enough memory available. So give AEM lots of memory.
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Since most Enterprise use a CDN, uses TARMK. From Adobe's microkernal recommendations,
- TarMK is designed for performance
- MongoMK is used for scalability
- TarMK is designed for performance
- of Authoring servers
"Adobe highly recommends TarMK to be the default persistence technology used by customers in all deployment scenarios, for both the AEM Author and Publish instances".
MongoDB is an alternative data storage introduced in AEM 6.0 which provides active site redundancy. However, Adobe does not yet endorse full fledged as of 6.0 for active site redundancy (ie sharding support was problematic and dropped). Adobe's only reason to recommend MongoDB is if author instance has load requiring one instance. Even then, a larger Author machine likely the better solution.
SDD or HDD? - Ask Adobe how often the microkernal writes?
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You should see "Adobe Experience Mgr" but it says "No Serial Number Required". This is not true. Instead look for "AEM Standard" with Production Version "5.6" and you will see a serial number under the "Serial" column. Copy and paste into a standard text file for later.
Setup of Web Server Dispatcher
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AEM
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The advantage is that the Web Server will build a cache of the content reducing load on the AEM Publisher. This is because the AEM Publisher dynamically builds the web pages at every request (even if they do not change). In addition, the Dispatcher can perform load balancing with multiple AEM Publishers.
You may want to read the Adobe Dispatcher online documentation for further background.
Install Apache Web Server per BonsaiFramework with hardening instructions.
Download module and load into Apache per the Adobe Instructions. If following the BonsaFramework you can copy and paste these instructions,
| Code Block |
|---|
su - serveradmin
mkdir aem
cd aem
mkdir aem-dispatcher
cd aem-dispatcher
# Initial instructions will use non-ssl version between Web
wget https://www.adobeaemcloud.com/content/companies/public/adobe/dispatcher/dispatcher/_jcr_content/top/download_6/file.res/dispatcher-apache2.4-linux-i686-4.2.0.tar.gz
tar -xvpf dispatcher-apache2.4-linux-i686-4.2.0.tar.gz |
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Application Server
AEM package comes in two flavours,
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| Code Block |
|---|
CQ_JVM_OPTS # may modify in serverctl or start script |
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Author Server
Rename file,
| Code Block | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
mv cq-quickstart-6.2.0.jar cq-author-p4502.jar |
This will result in an author instance running on port 4502.
Publish Server
Rename file,
| Code Block | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
mv cq-quickstart-6.2.0.jar cq-publish-p4502.jar |
This will result in an publish instance running on port 4502.
Next Steps
In a large organization you will also need to consider the following,
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