Deploying and Maintaining

Deploying and Maintaining

Overview / Adobe Experience Manager / Adobe Experience Manager 6.0 /

In this page you will find:

Basic Concepts
What is AEM?
Typical Deployment Scenarios
Getting Started
Prerequisites
Getting the Software
Default Local Install
Author and Publish Installs
Unpacked Install Directory
Starting and Stopping
Once you have familiarized yourself with these basics, you will find in more advanced and detailed
information in the following subpages:

Basic Concepts
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 intergated Jetty web
server) 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 userfacing 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
Social Communities
Online Commerce
Finally, customers can use these infrastructrue 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
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.
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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 7.
For purposes of familiarization 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 (Internet Explorer 9+, Chrome, Firefox, Safari 6+)
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 foms:
cq-quickstart-6.0.0.jar: A standalone executable jar file that includes everything needed to get up and
running.
cq-quickstart-6.0.0.war: A war file for deployment in a third-party application server.
In addition you will also need a license code (to be entered on start-up) or a license.properties file, holding
a valid code.
In the following section we describe the standalone installation. For details on installing AEM in an
application server see Application Server Install.
CAUTION

It's recommended for all customers to install Adobe Experience Manager Service Pack 1 either
with the initial install, or using the Package Manager to apply SP1 after the installation. Learn
more about SP1 on: Release Notes.

DEFAULT LOCAL INSTALL

1.

2.

Create an install directory on your local machine. On a unix machine this might be
/opt/aem
In Windows it might be
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 path of the file directory must consist of only US ASCII characters.
Place the the jar and license files in this directory:
<aem-install>/
cq-quickstart-6.0.0.jar
license.properties

3.

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-6.0.0.jar file.
Alternative, you can launch AEM from the command line. For a 32-bit Java VM enter the following:
java -Xmx1024M -jar cq-quickstart-6.0.0.jar

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For a 64-bit VM, enter:

java -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Xmx1024M -jar cq-quickstart-6.0.0.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
at port 4502
To access the instance point your browser to:
http://localhost:4502
The result in 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-6.0.0.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 auomatically and a desktop
application window will also open displaying the host and port of the instance and an on/off switch:

2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated.

All rights reserved.

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Deploying and Maintaining

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 fom 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.
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 the your role, see the
following:
Authoring
Administering
Developing
Managing

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:

Deploying CQ

2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated.

All rights reserved.

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Created on 2014-09-08