Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Cloud Migration: Step-by-Step Guide

What is AEM cloud migration?

Experience has been at the core of business success and its association with customers. Businesses and marketers who have been using Adobe Experience Manager (on-premises) are open to innovation as they are always concerned about whether they’re getting the appropriate ROI. Primarily, they use AEM-managed services to achieve their KPI goals for cost efficiency, scalability, flexibility, improved performance, enhanced security, and integration capability with cloud services in simple yet intuitive management.

Yet, some additional advantages, privileges, and benefits of migrating to the AEM cloud include enhanced security, scalability, flexibility, performance, easy content management, maximum uptime, reduced total cost of ownership, reliability, low-latency access, and more. With the increase in customer demands and performance matrices, brands are switching from their existing ‘on-premises’ to ‘on-cloud’ AEM with the help of an AEM migration agency. It helps them meet the requirements of future business expansion and performance with ease. Here, we have a step-by-step guide for successful AEM migration to the cloud to understand the process and be prepared before the actual migration happens.

AEM on-Premise to Cloud Migration: Step-by-Step Guide

AEM cloud migration is an easy and seamless process once you understand the requirements, analyze the existing environment, and follow these steps carefully. Here, we have an expert guide to help you understand the migration and its requirements in detail.

1. Analyze, Plan, and Estimate the Effort

The first step in this migration journey is to understand the changes that will impact the existing operations and working environment, various features and benefits, and the requirements of your AEM migration agency.

Architecture changes with automatic horizontal scaling
Separate mutable and immutable filters into corresponding packages
Custom run modes are not permitted
Sling content distribution replaces replication agents
Built-in CDN and option to procure your own
Asynchronous operations
File IO and disk usage considerations
Transition to cloud manager pipeline execution
CRX/DE and package manager changes
Adoption of token-based authentication
Implementation of long-running jobs
Dispatcher configurations
DAM updates asset workflow enhancements
Workflow launchers modifications
Authentication alterations
AEM author access with Adobe account
DNS & SSL certificate configuration
Not all maintenance tasks are configurable
Custom rendition steps considerations
Supported workflow process steps and asset upload methods
Content Search and Indexing optimizations
Architecture adjustments with automatic horizontal scaling
Backup and restore procedures
Changes to publish repository
Project code structure adaptations
Dispatcher configuration enhancements
Network, API connections, DNS & SSL configuration
Integration with CI/CD pipelines
User groups & permissions adjustments

These are the discussion points with all the stakeholders, teams, and AEM migration agency to understand the requirements, timeframes, roles, and efforts for this migration process. The Adobe representative will also ensure that all the required licensing agreements and appropriate subscriptions for AEM as a cloud service are updated with you.

2. Prepare the Code and Environments

Now, this is a crucial step as being completely technical to get the AEM environment prepared for the Cloud. Adobe Best Practices Analyzer is an Adobe tool that helps you review your current AEM environment and technical setup to understand it and suggest upgrades and other technical enhancements for optimum performance. AEM experts will clean up the existing code and other outdated features to make it a smoother migration with minimal friction and downtime. Then, setting up the AEM Cloud Manager is required to start using AEM as a robust cloud service system.

3. Migrate the Code and Projects to the AEM Cloud

We have the code cleaned and prepared to work seamlessly on the existing AEM and on the ‘Cloud.’ Make sure all the environments, including staging, production, etc., have been successfully configured for the Cloud and are readily available to use. Then, simply place the code in the Cloud GIT repository to initiate the migration process. Ensure there are no major changes during this process.

4. Checkout Integration with External Systems and Core Services

Possibilities are there that the website you have might be integrated with other external systems via APIs for performance enhancement and optimization. It’s essential that the AEM Cloud environment is also integrated with these external systems and services for better performance. Make sure all of these integrations and configurations are reflected in the AEM Cloud Manager to keep things in sync. Additionally, as AEM as a Cloud Service comes with a static IP that must be allowed on your end to let the website get connected with on-site programs and applications.

5. Integration with Adobe Experience Cloud Applications

Adobe Experience Cloud (AEC) has a range of applications that help you transform experiences that last. However, this is an optional yet recommended step to integrate applications like Adobe Analytics, Audience Manager, Adobe Target, and more for your website to enhance your customer experience (CX). It’s an easy integration that enables you to derive customer insights with the help of web analytics and craft personalized experiences with Adobe tools available on the cloud.

6. Content Migration Process

You already had your rich content before this migration process, which needs to migrate to the cloud. In this step, all the content, including webpage content, assets, images, banners, and other data, needs to move to the cloud. In order to make it a smoother migration, you can use Adobe’s Content Transfer Tool, which enables seamless movement of all the existing content from ‘on-premises’ to ‘on-cloud’ with ease. It also ensures that contents are in sync, so as there is any change in the production environment, it simultaneously reflects on the contents available on the cloud.

7. Test the Migration

Once we’re done with the migration steps, we need to move to the migration testing and ensure the performance and availability of similar environments on the cloud without any lack. In this step, the major stakeholders, like QA teams and business users, test the complete AEM environment using a UAT session. Plus, the marketing and content team should also test the environment and functionality as they usually work primarily with various components and can identify the performance. Once the comprehensive testing is over, then, you can be assured about the uninterrupted operations, functionality, and performance in this on-cloud environment to deliver engaging and lasting experiences. After this successful testing, you can go live and experience the difference with the new on-cloud operations.

8. Training and Learning

Though the Adobe admin interface remains unchanged, so the authors won’t find much of a difference while working after migration from on-premises to on-cloud, there is basic information, learning, and training required to make them aware of Adobe Cloud Manager. Now, the complete management of this on-cloud tool should be done by the IT or DevOps team to ensure seamless working. Your AEM migration agency and its experts will help you learn more about the Adobe Cloud manager environment and get in touch with them for any concerns or queries.

Conclusion

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) as an on-cloud Service solution has an immense opportunity with its scalable, secure, and agile technology that works seamlessly with Adobe Experience Manager on-cloud applications to empower brands, businesses, and marketers to deliver impactful experiences at scale. When you plan to move ahead with the on-cloud application of AEM services, prepare your stakeholders and teams with these steps to make them understand the process and their respective roles.

However, it’s a highly technical process that requires experienced and certified experts to complete the migration process, so it is recommended that you get in touch with an AEM migration agency like us. At Krish, we have a certified and experienced Adobe Experience Manager Consultants and expert team to help you with easy and seamless migration. Get in touch with us to discuss your requirements and experience our exclusive services.

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Abhilash is a coffee-fanatic marketer and storyteller, always seeking new experiences and captivating stories from life. With his meticulous research and vivid narratives, he simplifies complex technologies accessible to all. He spends much of his spare time on traveling and stories from life.

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