AEM As a Cloud Service: The Next Big Thing?

“Cloud service is like an endless supply of Lego blocks. The scale of any project can be adjusted by adding on or taking away blocks.”

Adobe recently announced their Adobe Experience Manager as a “Cloud Service” offering.

Ever since this announcement, which was eagerly anticipated by many, there have been a number of burning questions on AEM as a Cloud Service.

Over the past few years, Adobe has been leading the way in migrating on-premise software to the cloud.

This recent announcement strongly positions AEM as one of the premier cloud-native solutions for digital experience management.

In this blog post, we’ve tried to cover some of the basic questions about the tool that is often referred to as a ‘powerhouse’ for your content and digital asset management needs. Without further ado, let’s explore why this announcement is such big news!

But first things first,

What is AEM as a Cloud Service?

Launched in January 2020, Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service is the next generation and cloud-native way of leveraging AEM applications. It facilitates you to provide your customers with content-led experiences that are personalized. This is done by seamlessly blending the power of AEM Content Management System with AEM Digital Asset Management.

AEM as a Cloud Service, however, looks like this:

Source – www.jetteroheller.com

Adobe incorporates recent changes in Apache Sling, Apache Kafka, and Apache Oak. They combine this with their AEM Cloud Manager offering and Adobe I/O Events to deploy the new AEM as a Cloud Service.

What’s new in AEM as a Cloud Service?

Running natively in Adobe’s cloud as Platform-as-a-Service, AEM as a Cloud Service is poles apart from Adobe Managed Services or Cloud Manager offerings.

AEM, in essence, as a Cloud Service, involves Adobe automatically managing and provisioning AEM instances running in Docker containers. These are managed by Kubernetes and backed by a shared file store as well as a new provisioning model.

For users of the end system, the process remains the same including the Cloud Manager for provisioning, the integration with the Adobe Experience Cloud tools, and the AEM UI (mostly).

However, for system engineers, architects, and developers, this is a fundamental change. It allows significantly greater performance and provides unconventional capabilities of AEM along with flexibility.

Source – www.perficient.com

Is it going to be “version-less”?

Adobe, after launching AEM as a Cloud Service, is now able to move to a fully continual release cycle that is versionless as opposed to their standard quarterly/annual release. The SaaS company can now fully control the release process and launch new features rapidly. While it is yet to be seen how this will really pan out, Adobe will make local version-updated AEM instances available that can be used by developers for software development.

AEM as a Cloud Service: what is new and different?

Adopting all benefits of modern cloud-based services, this next-gen of AEM offering:

• Allows you to provide continuous integration and delivery for updates with zero downtime
• Leverages a built-in CND or Content Delivery Network
• Removes infrastructure considerations as it is based on a dynamic architecture
• Uses automated security tests to scan vulnerabilities efficiently
• Reduces manual configuration significantly
• Is fully integrated with the Adobe Experience Cloud

These features, as a result, help:

• Developers, with the ability to configure and extend AEM’s capabilities, augmented with the recent cloud-based development pattern
• Content writers and marketing professionals, experience the latest innovations and a rapid time-to-value
• System administrators, by streamlining infrastructure and configuration

What are the benefits of using AEM Cloud Services?

“Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service supercharges organizations’ abilities to create, manage and deliver more campaigns, digital assets and experiences faster than ever before”

– Loni Stark
(Senior director of strategy and product marketing at Adobe)

Here are the benefits of AEM as a Cloud Service:

• Zero downtime: Previously, AEM would often stop its service to upgrade/update and maintain. AEM Cloud Service, on the other hand, will constantly be updated and available. This means that customers do not experience any downtime.
• Self-learning: AEM Cloud Service had the ability to constantly learn and evolve on the basis of projects implemented by customers. Configurations, codes, and content are always reviewed against best practices. As a result, this helps its users achieve their business goals easily. Additionally, an array of components in AEM Cloud Solution are equipped with health checks and thus, are able to self-heal.
• Automatic/manual scalability: Based on Kubernetes, every instance of AEM Cloud Service is created with a default sizing. It regularly monitors the state of the service and scales up and down, dynamically. It enables automatic and manual scalability on the basis of customer requirements.

Key takeaway

While customers still have the option to leverage on-premise AEM, these new features will certainly drive customers to upgrade to the cloud! In fact, early results of this new Cloud Service have shown that processing speeds and user productivity has increased by nearly 50% and 40% respectively, according to Adobe.

Want to Know More About AEM as a Cloud Service? Talk to Us!