Enhancing Adobe Experience Manager (CQ5) with Varnish

Dan Beldiman, Senior System Engineer 28. November 2013

About netcentric

Founded 2012 focused on Web Experience Projects

80 Employees inMünchen, Zürich, London und Barcelona

Focus onAdobe CQ5

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AGEN

DA

1 Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)

2 Caching with AEM

3 Varnish with AEM

4 Q & A

1 ADOBE EXPERIENCE MANAGER

What is Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)?

An easy-to-use unified web content management solution

Create, and deliver personalized online experiences

Formerly known as "CQ5"

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Easy to use, great look and feel

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AEM technical setup: The big picture

Content Replication

Request content from web server

Via load- balancer

If not cached, request content from Publish

Content request form web- server with dispatcher cache

Author Surfer

Publish

Author Load

Balancer

Web Server

Publish Web Server

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AEM technical setup: How cache flushing works

Apache Webserver

CQ5 Publisher

Docroot

Web request

Dispatcher Module

Request from CQ if not in cache

Page activation

Local cache

Cache Flush request

GET/dispatcher/ invalidate.cache HTTP/1.1"

CQ-Path: /content/mysite/mypage"

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2 CACHING WITH AEM

AEM Caching module: Dispatcher

A Web server module for Apache httpd, Microsoft IIS and others

Stores cachable objects in the docroot

Basic flushing & invalidation support

Support for multiple virtual hosts

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How the Dispatcher returns documents

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Source: https://dev.day.com/docs/en/cq/current/deploying/dispatcher.html

If not cachable, return document

If cachable, put document into cache

Yes, take document from cache

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Is the request cachable?

Is it cached?

Is it up to date?

Render the document

Document request

Document

DISPATCHER

CACHE

Why change the Dispatcher?

Due to it's nature it can only cache the body of a response § No redirects

As the request handling is done by the underlying web server, concurrency is a big issue § Multiple requests to the same complex pages

Rules for high-traffic or complex pages cannot easily be configured § Workarounds using RewriteRules…

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Why Varnish?

Because Varnish is awesome J

Caching and flushing can be defined fine grained §  Logic of content references can be built into flush rules

Is fast and reliable § Used in Intranet where CDN is not an option for web acceleration

Caching of non-html responses is possible § Caching of redirects

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3 VARNISH WITH AEM

CQ5 Technical setup: publishing details using varnish

CQ5 Publisher

Varnish

Apache Webserver

Request from CQ if not in cache

Web request

Page activation

Cache Flush request

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What does it take for a basic integration?

if (req.url == "/dispatcher/invalidate.cache"){ if(req.http.CQ-Handle){ ban("obj.http.x-url ~ ^"+req.http.CQ-Handle+"[^/]*$"); std.log("Banning: "+"obj.http.x-url ~ ^"+req.http.CQ-Handle+"[^/]*$"); }

}

Literally one condition with a ban statement …

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What else can we achieve?

Improve flushing/ invalidation through specific rules

Change flush behaviour dynamically

Control cache through the admin interface

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dan.beldiman@netcentric.biz Tel: +49 170 5844847

Landsberger Strasse 110Central Tower80339 Munich

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Dan Beldiman

Netcentric Deutschland GmbH

Poststrasse 58805 Pfäffikon

Netcentric AG

Avenida Diagonal 1238ª Planta08005 Barcelona

Netcentric Iberia S.L.

Nordstrasse 98006 Zurich

Holland HouseGherkin Piazza, 1 – 4 Bury StreetLondonEC3A 5AW

Netcentric UK Limited

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