Deploying and Maintaining

What is AEM?
Adobe Experience Manager is a web-based client-server system for building, managing, and deploying commercial websites and related services. It combines a number of infrastructure-level and application-level functions into a single integrated package.
At the infrastructure level AEM provides the following:

Web Application Server: AEM can be deployed in standalone mode (it includes an integrated Jetty webserver) or as a web application within a third-party application server (WebLogic, WebSphere, etc).
Web Application Framework: AEM incorporates the Sling Web Application Framework that simplifies the writing of RESTful, content-oriented web applications.
Content Repository: AEM includes a Java Content Repository (JCR), a type of hierarchical database designed specifically for unstructured and semi-structured data. The repository stores not only the user-facing content but also all code, templates, and internal data used by the application.

Building on this base, AEM also offers a number of application-level features for the management of:

Websites
Mobile Applications
Digital Publications
Forms
Digital Assets
Communities
Online Commerce

Finally, customers can use these infrastructure and application-level building blocks to create customized solutions by building applications of their own.

The AEM server is Java-based and runs on most operating systems that support that platform. All client interaction with AEM is done through a web browser.

Typical Deployment Scenarios
In AEM terminology an "instance" is a copy of AEM running on a server. AEM installations usually involve at least two instances, typically running on separate machines:
Author: An AEM instance used to create, upload, and edit content and to administer the website. Once the content is ready to go live, it is replicated to the publish instance.
Publish An AEM instance that serves the published content to the public.

These instances are identical in terms of installed software. They are differentiated by configuration only. In addition, most installations use a dispatcher:
Dispatcher: A static web server (Apache httpd, Microsoft IIS, etc.) augmented with the AEM dispatcher module. It caches web pages produced by the publish instance to improve performance.

There are many advanced options and elaborations of this setup, but the basic pattern of author, publish and dispatcher is at the core of most deployments. We will begin by focusing on a relatively simple set up. Discussion of advanced deployment options will follow.

Getting Started
Prerequisites
While production instances are usually run on dedicated machines running an officially supported OS (see Technical Requirements), the Experience Manager server will actually run on any system that supports Java Standard Edition 8.

For purposes of familiarisation and for developing on AEM it is quite common to use an instance installed on your local machine running Apple OS X or desktop versions of Microsoft Windows or Linux.

On the client-side, AEM works with all modern browsers (Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer 11, Chrome 51+, Firefox 47+, Safari 8+) on both desktop and tablet operating systems. See Supported Client Platforms for details.

Getting the Software
Customers with a valid maintenance and support contract should have received a mail notification with a code and be able to download AEM from the Adobe Licensing Website. Business partners can request download access from spphelp@adobe.com.

The AEM software package is available in two forms:
cq-quickstart-6.3.0.jar: A standalone executable jar file that includes everything needed to get up and running.
cq-quickstart-6.3.0.war: A war file for deployment in a third-party application server.

In the following section, we describe the standalone installation. For details on installing AEM in an application server see Application Server Install.

Default Local Install

Create an install directory on your local machine. For example:
UNIX install location: /opt/aem
Windows install location: C:\Program Files\aem
Equally, it is common to install sample instances in a folder right on the desktop. In any case, we will refer to this location generically as:

       <aem-install>

Note that the path of the file directory must consist of only US ASCII characters.

Place the jar and license files in this directory:
<aem-install>/
                cq-quickstart-6.3.0.jar
                  license.properties

If you do not provide a license.properties file, AEM will redirect your browser to a Welcome screen on startup, where you can enter a license key. You will need to request a valid license key from Adobe if you do not yet have one.

To start up the instance in a GUI environment, just double-click the cq-quickstart-6.3.0.jar file.

Alternatively, you can launch AEM from the command line. For a 32-bit Java VM enter the following:
java -Xmx1024M -jar cq-quickstart-6.3.0.jar

For a 64-bit VM, enter:
java -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Xmx1024M -jar cq-quickstart-6.3.0.jar

AEM will take a few minutes to unpack the jar file, install itself, and start-up. The above procedure results in:

an AEM author instance
running on localhost
on port 4502

To access the instance point your browser to:
http://localhost:4502

The result in the author instance will be automatically configured to connect to a publish instance on localhost:4503.

Author and Publish Installs
The default install (an author instance on localhost:4502) can be changed simply by renaming the jar file before launching it for the first time. The naming pattern is:
cq-<instance-type>-p<port-number>.jar

For example, renaming the file to
cq-author-p4502.jar

and launching it will result in an author instance running on localhost:4502.

Similarly, renaming and launching the file
cq-publish-p4503.jar

will result in a publish instance running on localhost:4503.
You would install these two instances in, for example
<aem-install>/author and
<aem-install>/publish

For more details on customizing your installation see the following:
Custom Standalone Install
Run Modes

Unpacked Install Directory
When the quickstart jar is launched for the first time it will unpack itself into the same directory under a new sub-directory called crx-quickstart. You should end up with the following:

<aem-install>/
               license.properties
               cq-quickstart-6.3.0.jar
               crx-quickstart/
                   app/
                   bin/
                   conf/
                   launchpad/
                   logs/
                   monitoring/
                   opt/
                   repository/
                   eula-de_DE.html
                 eula-en_US.html
                   eula-fr_FR.html
                 eula-ja_JP.html
                 readme.txt

If the instance was installed from the GUI, then a browser window will open automatically and a desktop application window will also open displaying the host and port of the instance and an on/off switch:

Note:
If you are using symlinks, have a look at issues with symlink.

Starting and Stopping
Once AEM has unpacked itself and started up for the first time, double-clicking on the jar file in the install directory simply starts the instance, it does not re-install it.

To stop the instance from the GUI, simply click the on/off switch on the desktop application window.

You can also stop and start AEM from the command line. Assuming you have already installed the instance for the first time, the command-line scripts are located here:

<aem-install>/crx-quickstart/bin/

This folder contains the following Unix bash shell scripts:
start: Starts the instance
stop: Stops the instance
status: Reports the status of the instance
quickstart: Used to configure start information, if necessary.

There are also equivalent bat files for Windows. For more detailed information see:
Command Line Start and Stop

AEM starts and automatically redirects your web browser to the appropriate page, usually the login page; for example:
http://localhost:4502/

Once logged in, you have access to AEM. For further information, depending on your role, see the following:

Advanced Deployment
The above section should give you a good understanding of the basics of AEM installation. However, installing a full production system of AEM can involve considerably more complexity. For full coverage of advanced installation see the following subpages:

AEM Tutorials for Beginners

January 4, 2021
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