Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

April, 2018

PILLARS OF PERFORMANCE

T-Mobile’s sales are

o� the hook, and the

value of customer

orders has increased

+56% with the help

of Experience

Manager Sites.

MasterCard credits

design simplicity for

engaging audiences

and improving

website tra�c by

30% in just two

weeks.

Philips’ ability to test

and optimize their

web pages led to a

20% improvement in

customer

click-through rates.

Business impact of a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager3

Executive

In today’s digital economy, customers are in the driver seat, using

multiple channels and devices while interacting with hundreds of

products daily. Customer experience is the new competitive

ba�le�eld. It’s where business is won or lost1. In a world of

connected consumers, the ability to source the best content,

manage it e�ectively, align it with the brand, deliver it to consumers

at the moments that ma�er the most, and continuously optimize this

process is a ma�er of survival2.

Top brands around the globe are already using Adobe Experience

Manager as their omnichannel web content management (WCM)

technology to deliver great customer experience on every type of device and channel. But simply having a WCM platform will no longer

di�erentiate your brand. You must adopt a programmatic approach

around creating e�ciencies in designing, implementing and

maintaining a high-performing Experience Manager platform in

order to meet the fast-paced challenge of delivering uniquely

compelling experiences that incite engagement at every

touchpoint, and drive your business.

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

+56%ORDERS

+30%TRAFFIC

+20%CTR

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

Since its inception, Experience Manager has been built to address the needs of IT

and marketing in designing, managing and delivering great digital experiences.

�ese groups demand agility and speed to support the latest consumer

expectations. In the past, those expectations centered on a website that looked

great, no ma�er the screen size—desktop or mobile—and enabled users to

interact in meaningful ways. Today, these demands are greatly ampli�ed, in

terms of increased speed and range of touchpoints beyond mobile, which

include social media, IoT, point-of-sale and in-venue screens. �e features and

capabilities of Adobe Experience Manager are designed to enable brands to

address these demands by presenting perfect experiences on these relatively

new touchpoints.

Achieving �uidity in brand experiences starts with building a high-performing

web content management system. While you may have access to the best WCM

capabilities, it can only yield the desired results when you design, implement,

maintain and monitor your content management solution in the most

programmatic manner. You’ll be amazed how just by following this approach

you are able to augment the e�ciency of your Experience Manager

platform—essential to creating a content backbone for your brand that’s both

agile and robust.

Achieving �uidity in brand experiences starts with building a high-performing web content management system.

Adobe Experience Manager into a web content management powerhouse.

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

of a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

Discovery & Design

De�ne, assess and design for business and technical requirements—mapped

to the solution implementation roadmap

and business goals.

�ese guiding principles apply both to the Adobe-led and hybrid implementation or upgrade models, i.e., when the teams working on the design, deploymentand maintenance of the solution are a combination of Adobe and non-Adobe resources.

Implementation & Go-live readiness

Code to create a reusable platform. Follow check-lists, rope in experts

to test system performance and

load readiness.

Platform value realization

For greater ongoing success, pay a�ention to

change management and regular health check of your WCM platform.

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

Discovery &

DiscoverySuccessful projects require a detailed discovery process to identify business

requirements. During the discovery process, it’s best to review all

solution-related digital goals, priorities and objectives through interviews

and exploratory sessions with key users and stakeholders. �is helps assure

accuracy and validity of the proposed solution.

The critical aspect of discovery is technical architecture planning based on

your unique business requirements. The objective here is to define your

online business goals so that your consultant can envision the contribution

of Adobe Experience Manager solution to help meet these business goals4.

�is phase also de�nes the technical requirements of the implementation

to help minimize issues that might be encountered during the

implementation phase.

Architecture and design�e objective of this phase is to come up with a comprehensive system

architecture and design that caters to the requirements gathered in the

discovery session. �is also helps revalidate the requirements and

prioritizations, while providing the blueprint for the implementation phase. It

can be a good idea to include an Adobe expert who can help review and

validate the solution architecture, design and development process and

launch readiness by aligning e�orts to best practices. An expert can help in

catching architectural design �aws early on, optimize and streamline

Experience Manager deployment with timely advice and recommendations.

Typical outcomes of this phase include:

Physical architecture (deployment model, environment specifications)

Logical architecture (how the solution works)

Integration speci�cations(how the solution integrates with other systems)

Information architecture (content modelling)

So�ware architecture(Code structure, packages, modules)

Testing strategy(functional, non-functional)

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

DOING IT

Discovery & Design

RIGHTDesign for platform scalability.In today’s omni-channel world, organizations are constantly under pressure to deliver innovative

experiences at scale to acquire and retain customers. Hence, the need to deploy new experiences or

updates has shrunk from monthly to weekly and in some cases daily. Any signi�cant WCM

technology upgrade is tricky, costly, di�cult and time consuming. However, when you don’t upgrade

at the right time, you miss on receiving and deploying critical hot�xes, service packs, feature packs,

and most importantly, you are not able to use the latest features of the new version. Following

some of the below practices can go far in building your readiness to upgrade.

Customize carefully: You can customize as much as necessary, but it is recommended you do it as

little as possible. Prefer extensions over overlaying the product code. It’s best to make customizations

identifiable by making them part of source control. Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous

Deployment (CD) help automate the process of building and deployment of code.

Follow the REST (Representational State Transfer)5 principles: �is is the foundational building

block of an Experience Manager architecture. Based on HTTP standard operations, this simpli�es

and decouples the architecture, making it scalable.

Manage configurations well: Configuration management provides a predictable environment for

easy diagnosis, making the framework flexible, easy to scale and replicate. �e best way to do it is by

designing for a highly configurable system by leveraging the out-of-the-box OSGi (open service

gateway initiative) configuration services framework as much as you can. Also, treat configurations as

code. Never ever manually change configurations. Design the build and deployment process

considering the configuration deployment along with the code.

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

De�ne and design the information architecture.Information architecture is key aspect of sizing your requirements. It’s important

to ensure the e�ective content organization, governance (easy access control

management), scalability, usability and user experience. Doing this is critical to

driving key search engine optimization strategies.

Content modelling forms an important part of information architecture. Adobe

Experience Manager can support a broad range of use cases, including large

asset repositories, scalable asset ingestion, multisite management, geographical

distributed authoring teams, and scalable content delivery. Choosing the right

deployment model is key to having a system that is tailored to a project's

speci�c requirements. It always helps to provision for future needs. You may be

implementing your �rst website on Experience Manager. But, it’s good to design

and implement keeping the Multi Site Manager (MSM) solution in mind.

Leverage MSM for multilingual systems. Make sure the content hierarchy

adheres to the MSM recommended structure. You need to scope the

architecture for content growth. For instance, consider if you need

year/month/day buckets for pages. Keep the taxonomy simple and consider

search and navigation requirements. While de�ning the metadata schema,

consider asset types, formats, global a�ributes, type-speci�c a�ributes, views

(Tile, Column, List) and search form.

Design for measurable non-functional requirements.It’s very important to scope and de�ne the non-functional requirements as well.

�is is key to ge�ing the application hardware sizing , design and the overall

enterprise platform architecture right. To ensure this, you need to keep the

present as well as future business needs in view so that the application stays

�exible and scalable.

Size it well: Design for the tra�c you want to have, not what you currently

have. Prepare a detailed summary of requirements related to requests on peak

load, concurrent users at peak, response time for standard page size, etc. You can

do this using Adobe’s sizing calculators6. �ey are tested and tuned for speci�c

needs and help you choose the right architecture.

De�ne test strategy: �e importance of testing can’t be overstated at this

stage. It helps to conduct thorough performance and security tests to assess

performance along with SEO tests around your requirements. De�ne the test

strategy in the beginning and stick to it. Don’t change tools, workload model,

environments, test data in between tests. Run multiple test cycle

(test/�x/validate). Test for futuristic peak load. Focus on dynamic content

(queries, integrations, un-cached content). Test with production like data. A

search with only 10 test pages in the repository will perform �ne even with the

worst query. Make sure the system has the content size as close to production.

Secure it: Make sure the Experience Manager security checklist7 is followed. Also,

de�ne backup/restore, disaster recovery and switchover strategy. Access Control

protocols also should be de�ned. You can make use of the out-of-the-box

groups. Extend these to the application speci�c groups. Keep the groups

hierarchy simple. Avoid deny permissions as much as possible. Treat permissions

as code, deploy them using CI/CD mechanism. Manual permission changes are

always a disaster waiting to happen.

Implementation &

ImplementationAchieving scalable Experience Manager implementation requires evaluating

numerous aspects of a project—compute requirements, availability,

governance, user connectivity, content delivery, system integration,

maintainability and functional requirements—all while delivering the best

experience to internal and external user groups. �is is the coding phase where

the development team builds the solution. It’s important here to make sure you

are creating a reusable platform consisting templates, components and services

to be used by more than one brand or business unit to create independent

websites or microsites. Your Experience Manager platform should provide the flexibility to create a best-in-class unique site, while keeping within enterprise

standards and guide-rails.

Agile is the norm these days and Adobe recommends this methodology for the

many bene�ts that it o�ers, namely increased project control, reduced risks, flexibility to iterate and change at any stage, predictable and on-time project

completion and faster ROI.

Poorly architected and implemented Experience Manager instances can cause

major performance issues downstream. Mistakes can be costly, resulting in

delays and reduced margins. To avoid this, it’s important to have Experience

Manager technology set up teams with appropriate expertise. Adobe offers role-

based and solution capability based training programs to help brands build the

skills needed to effectively use the capabilities of the Experience Manager

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

platform. There are variety of training options available: instructor-led training

delivered virtually, on-site, or at Adobe regional training centers; self-paced

online and on-demand content when it's convenient for you and your teams8.

Go-live readinessIn today’s fast-moving digital landscape, it's critical to get your digital experiences

up and running quickly. Implementing a new web content management

solution or redesigning your current web experience can be a lengthy and

complex e�ort. �e time required for design, development and testing can delay

your time to market, ultimately preventing you from delivering value to your

end customers.

Maintenance and Monitoring are important aspects of the go-live process that

help ensure successful roll-out, continued e�ectiveness and uninterrupted

availability of your Experience Manager application. �is helps proactively

manage and optimize the performance of your code, application dependencies,

transaction times and overall user experiences.

DOING IT

Implementation

RIGHT

Replicate production for local environment for predictive deployment and testing and complete coverage. To do this, have

all the components of the infrastructure available on lower environments as

well. �is includes Dispatcher, Single Sign-on (SSO), and any other integrations.

For obvious reasons, the lower environments can be scaled down in size. Where

a full featured integration is not possible, make use of mock ups.

Leverage the already available Adobe tools. Use Core Components9 by Adobe instead of reinventing the wheel. They are highly configurable components with a neat architecture and clean code, tested

across implementations by various customers. �ey are versioned and are

easily upgradable.

You can also use ACS Commons tools and features10. �ey o�er some of the most

common features almost every implementation needs. For custom

development, align to the framework same as core components for quick

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

development instead of spending time on deciding on a custom framework.

�ese practices help you reduce cost and time-to-market, and align with the

recommended standards.

De�ne the quality plan meticulously.Have quality gates de�ned early in the game. De�ne measurable goals and roles

and responsibilities. �is adds value as the output is a quality product. To do this,

start with a well-de�ned De�nition of Done (DoD). For example, have the code

review checklist and make sure the reviewers are following this. Once the code

is out of the local environment, make sure the integrations are tested before it

reaches QA.

�e team should agree on the standard with respect to code �ow,

class/package/method names, etc. De�ne the strategy for packaging and

organizing code. For instance, don’t have all the code in one bundle. Adhere to

OSGi best practices. Make sure the CI process uses a static code analyzer (for

example, SonarQube) to perform the �rst round of the code review in an

automated fashion. �is makes the life of reviewers very easy and allows them

to focus on the important stu�.

Standardize usage of tools.Enforce standards in an automated manner as much as possible so that

developers don’t have to spend additional time to implement standards

manually. For example, con�gure the integrated developer environment to

perform the code optimization on each save.

DOING IT

Go-live readiness

RIGHTrestore11 repository content in Experience Manager. There are two ways to

achieve this e�ectively:

• You can create an external backup of the repository and store it in

a safe location. If the repository breaks down, you can restore it to the

previous state.

• You can create internal versions of the repository content. �ese versions are

stored in the repository along with the content, so you can quickly restore

nodes and trees you have changed or deleted.

Monitor to optimize. Work�ow failures may or may not have an immediate impact but in the long

run they are bound to cause issues. It’s tricky to manage such situations.

Monitoring helps handling this situation proactively. Key metrics to monitor

include: logs for errors or warnings; replication queues; running or failing

work�ows; query performance; response time; sling job queues; cached vs

non-cached request ratio and 40x/50x errors. Doing this helps optimize

application performance and address issues in real-time.

De�ne a thorough maintenance process. To ensure the performance optimization of the Experience Manager repository,

meticulously con�gure the maintenance process. Two key essentials for

achieving this are—con�guring maintenance task for

Project/Tasks/Work�ow/Revision cleanup and con�guring Tar optimization and

Garbage collection.

Structure logs: To track the digital performance of your experiences, it’s very

important to have a well-de�ned logging strategy. �is allows improved moni-

toring and easy extraction of informative metrics (basic analytics, performance,

etc.). It’s good to log everything. Pu�ing enough debug logs allows easy trouble-

shooting on the production environments. “Apache Sling Logging Con�guration”

provides a high level of con�guration changes without any restart. �is can be

turned on/o� for ad-hoc troubleshooting.

Have a working backup and restore procedure: To prevent any data loss and

ensure continuity and seamlessness of experiences, it's important to backup and

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

Organizations �nd greater success when they pay a�ention to change

management and ongoing evaluation and diagnostic review of their Experience

Manager platform.

To successfully drive change management, the best way is to plan and prepare

for an ongoing training and enablement strategy, focused on driving e�cient

adoption of your Experience Manager solution. Doing this can help you elevate

the value from your Experience Manager solution and ready your people and

your business for success.

Establishing a center of excellence, comprising a team focused on utilizing the

technology e�ciently and e�ectively, goes a long way in reducing the time to

make ongoing changes and facilitate change management.

Additionally, it helps to have an expert assess the ongoing effectiveness and

flexibility of the application to ensure scale and readiness in supporting dynamic

business goals and any future system upgrades. When you have a process-

driven diagnostics and performance audit framework in place, it becomes easy

to optimize project outcomes and ensure your WCM platform is ready to

consistently and rapidly support your brand’s needs around delivering

exceptional experiences across touchpoints.

Platform value

To successfully drive change management, the best way is to plan and prepare for an on-going training and enablement strategy, focused on driving e�cient adoption of your Experience Manager solution.

DOING IT

Platform value realization

RIGHT

Set up a monitoring and alert system.Maintenance and Monioring processes, which are an integral part of the go-live

phase, continue to be relevant post-implementation as well to ensure platform

continuity and high performance.

Apply recommended hot-fixes and service packs documented publically. You can find them here.

Perform security and performance test periodically.Ideally, with each feature or bug-fix the application development team is

releasing to production.

Periodically test the backup and restore strategy.As with monitoring and maintenance, it is important to review and test the

backup and storage strategy to prevent any data loss and ensure continuity and

seamlessness of experiences.

The system overview features in Experience Manager 6.4 offer a great dashboard view as well as JSON export.

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.

1. Tom Knighton

2. Adobe Named A Leader in 2017 Forrester Web CMS Wave

3. https://landing.adobe.com/en/na/solutions/experience-manager/327964-aem-gartner-wcm-mq.html

4. Experience Manager Discovery & Requirements

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer

6. Experience Manager Sizing Guidelines

7. Experience Manager Security Checklist

8. Adobe Experience Manager Course Catalog

9. Core components by Adobe

10. ACS Common Tools

11. Backup and restore

Copyright © 2018 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.Adobe and the Adobe logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.

We can help.Adobe Customer Solutions

We offer the oversight and expertise you need to build, manage and maintain a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform, essential to delivering

compelling content across experiences—at the scale you need to build your brand and drive engagement. To learn more, contact us.

Adobe Consulting Services

We offer the expertise you need to improve your digital experiences and make your Experience Cloud investments work faster. Our business and technology consulting

capabilities around Adobe Experience Manager ensure superior value realization, helping you accelerate your digital transformation.

Adobe Digital Learning Services (ADLS)

Build the skills essential to deliver the ideal experience to your customers, every time. ADLS provides a variety of training options when it's convenient for you and your teams, which includes instructor-led training delivered virtually, on-site, or at Adobe regional training centers, self paced on-demand learning, skills assessments, and

virtual lab sessions.

References

April 2018 | Pillars of performance - Building and maintaining a high-performing Adobe Experience Manager platform.