Is it a fit for your organization?
In our last post on AEM as a Cloud Service, we discussed the benefits of including some level of “cloud” in your organization’s Adobe Experience Manager architecture. The approach can range from leveraging a Managed Services team for Cloud Hosting to utilizing cloud services in a Service Oriented Architecture to a cloud-native solution like AEM as a Cloud Service.
This post will focus on the “Fit” of an organization to move to AEM as a Cloud Service and answer some of the following questions.
What makes an organization a good fit?
What ‘disqualifies’ an organization, for now?
What are the benefits of migrating?
What are some of the criteria that make an organization a good fit or not a good fit at this time?
1. The first thing to consider is what version of AEM you are currently running
- If it is 6.4 and you consider your AEM to be in good shape, moving to AEM as a Cloud Service is relatively straightforward. Adobe even provides a Digital Blueprint for customers and partners to follow to ensure a successful move.
- AEM versions older than 6.4 will require an audit to determine if moving directly to AEM as a Cloud Service is an option. At a minimum, an upgrade to 6.4 is needed, and then you can move to AEM as a Cloud Service.
- Do keep in mind that if your version is too old, let’s say older than 6.3, your chances of a straightforward move are reduced. We would recommend an audit and then putting AEM as a Cloud Service on your digital roadmap.
2. Inventory which AEM Modules you currently have
- AEM as a Cloud Service supports AEM Sites and AEM Assets, and many organizations will see immediate, positive benefits of switching to Sites and Assets as a Cloud Service.
- AEM as a Cloud Service does not yet support AEM Forms, AEM Communities, and AEM Screens.
- If you do leverage unsupported AEM modules we would recommend an audit and upgrading your current AEM instances so they are ready to move when Adobe is ready to support additional modules.
3. Investigate any integrations with AEM and other systems for content, services, or other responsibilities
- If there are minimal to no integrations, then you may be a good fit.
- In an architecture with multiple or complex integrations moving to AEM as a Cloud Service may be a better option down the road once Adobe supports a wider variety of integrations.
4. Consider your type of organization and if you need to handle any Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
- As a general rule, if you are a governmental, financial, or healthcare organization, or have strict rules about what information you can collect and how the data is stored, AEM as a Cloud Service will not be a good fit.
Now let’s talk about some of the benefits of moving to AEM as a Cloud Service.
- AEM as a Cloud Service is overall more performant than traditional on-premise or cloud-hosted AEM infrastructures. AEM as a Cloud Service has the capability to autoscale both the Author and Publish instances. As your traffic peaks, AEM will dynamically adjust to meet the need and readjust when the demand has passed.
- Gain access to the latest AEM features, functionality, and patches on a regular basis. Adobe is moving away from the yearly AEM big-bang releases that require time and investment to apply to your instances. Your team will now get access to features as they are ready, and, possibly even more importantly, there will be no downtime for the upgrade.
- Support for content and assets across the full lifecycle has been made simpler, faster, and easier to configure. There are now cloud-native connections to the Creative Cloud applications; optimized asset management, sharing, and distribution; more production-ready components and style systems incorporated into the product; and AEM Assets as a Cloud Service speeds up everything from upload to processing to distribution.
- AEM as a Cloud Service provides a distributed global footprint to deliver the customer experience closer to the customer leading to better performance.
- Native access to Sensei. For those organizations that want to leverage more artificial intelligence and machine learning in their digital practices, Sensei is now natively part of AEM as a Cloud Service. You can start to leverage Sensei capabilities like smart tagging immediately and plan to take advantage of more AI/ML in the future.
The benefits above only scratched the surface of the advantages of moving to AEM as a Cloud Service. In our next article, we will go more in-depth on the technical aspects of AEM as a Cloud Service.
- What makes it different from AEM hosted in the Cloud?
- What changes will you see in the processes of adding new features, applying upgrades, and future patches?
- What is the architecture of AEM as a Cloud Service?
- Highlight the benefits of migrating to AEM as a Cloud Service to a technology team.
Wunderman Thompson, an Adobe Global Platinum partner, has all the skills, knowledge, and processes to move you successfully to AEM as a Cloud Service. If you are ready to migrate to AEM as a Cloud Service or learn more about Wunderman Thompson and AEM as a Cloud Service, please contact us.
Please check back to read the next post in this series: Learn more about the technical aspects of AEM as a Cloud Service.
