Deployment & Cloud Manager

In AEM as a Cloud Service, you do not deploy by copying files to a server. Instead, you push code to a **Git repository ** and Cloud Manager builds, tests, and deploys it through a pipeline. This chapter covers the entire path from code to production.

The deployment model

Step	What happens
Push	Developer pushes code to the Cloud Manager Git repo
Build	Maven builds the project, runs tests, validates code quality
Deploy to Dev	The all package is deployed to the development environment
Promote to Stage	After dev validation, promote to staging
Approve & go live	Business approval, then deploy to production

Cloud Manager

Cloud Manager is Adobe's CI/CD platform for AEMaaCS. It provides:

• Git repository -- managed Git for your project
• Build pipelines -- Maven builds, code quality, security scans
• Environments -- dev, stage, production
• Monitoring -- logs, metrics, alerts

Accessing Cloud Manager

1. Log in to Adobe Experience Cloud
2. Navigate to Cloud Manager
3. Select your program (a program maps to one AEM project)

Programs and environments

Environment	Purpose	Access
Dev	Development and integration testing	Developers
Stage	Pre-production testing, UAT	QA team, stakeholders
Production	Live site	End users
RDE	Rapid iteration (no pipeline needed)	Developers

Git repository

Cloud Manager provides a managed Git repository. Your project structure maps to it:

repository-root/
├── pom.xml
├── core/
├── ui.apps/
├── ui.content/
├── ui.config/
├── ui.frontend/
├── all/
├── dispatcher/
└── it.tests/

Connecting your local project

# Add Cloud Manager as a remote
git remote add adobe https://git.cloudmanager.adobe.com/<org>/<program>/

# Push your code
git push adobe main

Or use Cloud Manager's Git directly as your primary repo. Many teams use GitHub/GitLab as the primary repo and sync to Cloud Manager via CI/CD.

Pipelines

Pipelines automate the build-test-deploy process.

Pipeline types

Type	What it does
Full-stack	Builds and deploys everything (code + content + Dispatcher)
Frontend	Builds and deploys only ui.frontend (fast CSS/JS updates)
Config	Deploys only configuration (CDN, WAF, traffic filter rules)
Web Tier	Deploys only Dispatcher configuration

Full-stack pipeline stages

1. Maven Build -- compiles your project (mvn clean install)
2. Unit Tests -- runs core/ tests
3. Code Quality -- SonarQube analysis (coverage, bugs, code smells)
4. Security Scan -- checks for known vulnerabilities
5. Deploy -- installs packages on the target environment
6. Functional Tests -- runs integration tests (it.tests/)
7. UI Tests -- runs end-to-end browser tests (if configured)

Creating a pipeline

1. In Cloud Manager, go to Pipelines
2. Click Add Pipeline
3. Choose Production or Non-Production
4. Select the pipeline type (Full-stack)
5. Configure the trigger:
   • On Git Changes -- auto-trigger on push
   • Manual -- trigger manually
6. Select the Git branch
7. Configure quality gates (code coverage thresholds, etc.)

Running a pipeline

1. Click Run on the pipeline
2. Watch the stages execute in the Cloud Manager UI
3. If a stage fails, review the logs:
   • Build logs for compilation errors
   • Test logs for test failures
   • Quality logs for SonarQube issues

Code quality gates

Cloud Manager enforces code quality:

Gate	Requirement
Unit test coverage	Minimum coverage percentage
Reliability rating	No critical bugs
Security rating	No critical vulnerabilities
Maintainability	Acceptable code smell count

Failing quality gates blocks deployment. You can override non-critical failures, but this requires manager approval.

Rapid Development Environments (RDE)

RDEs are fast-iteration environments for developers. Unlike the full pipeline (which takes 30--60 minutes), RDE deployments take seconds.

Setting up an RDE

1. In Cloud Manager, create an RDE environment
2. Install the AEM RDE CLI plugin:

aio plugins:install @adobe/aio-cli-plugin-aem-rde

3. Connect to your RDE:

aio aem:rde:setup

Deploying to RDE

# Deploy the entire project
aio aem:rde:install all/target/mysite.all-1.0-SNAPSHOT.zip

# Deploy just the core bundle (fast!)
aio aem:rde:install core/target/mysite.core-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar

# Deploy a content package
aio aem:rde:install ui.apps/target/mysite.ui.apps-1.0-SNAPSHOT.zip

# Deploy Dispatcher config
aio aem:rde:install dispatcher/src --type dispatcher

RDE workflow

The cycle time is dramatically shorter than a full pipeline. Use RDEs for:

• Trying out new features
• Debugging deployment issues
• Testing OSGi configurations
• Validating Dispatcher rules

Note: RDE is for development only. Always use the full pipeline for stage and production.

Content Transfer Tool

Moving content between environments (e.g., production content to dev for testing) uses the Content Transfer Tool:

Steps

1. Extract -- create a content package from the source environment
2. Ingest -- import the package into the target environment

What to transfer

Content	When to transfer
Pages	Copy production pages to dev for testing
Assets	Copy DAM assets for realistic testing
Users/Groups	Sync permissions
Configurations	Templates, Cloud Configs

Warning: Never transfer content from dev to production. The pipeline handles code deployment.

Environment-specific configuration

OSGi configurations vary by environment using run mode folders (chapter 3):

ui.config/src/main/content/jcr_root/apps/mysite/osgiconfig/
├── config/                    # All environments
├── config.author/             # Author instances
├── config.publish/            # Publish instances
├── config.dev/                # Dev environment
├── config.stage/              # Stage environment
└── config.prod/               # Production

Environment variables

AEMaaCS supports environment-specific variables in Cloud Manager:

1. Go to Environments > select your environment
2. Click Configuration
3. Add variables:

Variable	Type	Example
API_KEY	Secret	sk-abc123...
ANALYTICS_ID	Standard	UA-12345-1
FEATURE_FLAG	Standard	true

Access in OSGi configs:

{
    "api.key": "$[secret:API_KEY]",
    "analytics.id": "$[env:ANALYTICS_ID]"
}

Or in Java:

@Activate
protected void activate(BundleContext ctx) {
    String analyticsId = ctx.getProperty("ANALYTICS_ID");
}

Monitoring and logs

Cloud Manager logs

Access logs from Cloud Manager:

1. Go to Environments > select environment
2. Click Logs
3. Available logs:

Log	Contains
aemerror	AEM error log
aemrequest	HTTP request log
aemaccess	Access log
dispatcher	Dispatcher log
cdn	CDN log

Log tailing

Use the CLI to tail logs in real time:

aio aem:log:tail --environment <env-id> --service author --name aemerror

Custom logging

Configure log levels via OSGi:

{
    "org.apache.sling.commons.log.names": ["com.mysite"],
    "org.apache.sling.commons.log.level": "debug",
    "org.apache.sling.commons.log.file": "logs/mysite.log"
}

Going to production -- checklist

Before your first production deployment:

Area	Check
Code quality	All quality gates pass
Tests	Unit, integration, and UI tests pass
Dispatcher	Config validated with Dispatcher SDK
Performance	Load testing completed
Security	Security scan passes, sensitive paths blocked
SEO	Sitemap, robots.txt, canonical URLs, meta tags
Analytics	Tracking configured and verified
Content	Content authored and reviewed
Redirects	Old URL redirects configured
DNS	Domain pointed to Adobe CDN
SSL	Certificate provisioned via Cloud Manager
Monitoring	Alerts configured for errors and performance

For deeper deployment patterns, see the Deployment, Cloud Service, Testing, and Security Basics references.

Summary

You learned:

• The deployment model -- Git > Cloud Manager > pipeline > environments
• Cloud Manager -- Git, pipelines, environments, monitoring
• Pipeline types -- full-stack, frontend, config, web tier
• Pipeline stages -- build, test, code quality, security, deploy
• Rapid Development Environments -- fast iteration with the RDE CLI
• Content Transfer Tool -- moving content between environments
• Environment-specific config -- run modes, environment variables
• Monitoring -- logs, tailing, custom logging
• Production checklist -- what to verify before going live

Congratulations

You have completed the AEM Beginners Guide! You now understand:

• The AEM technology stack (JCR, Sling, OSGi)
• How to build components (HTL, dialogs, Sling Models)
• How to create pages (templates, policies, Core Components, client libraries)
• Headless content delivery (Content Fragments, GraphQL)
• Multi-site and multi-language management (MSM, i18n)
• Production operations (Dispatcher, Cloud Manager, deployment)

From here, explore the AEM reference documentation for deep dives into specific topics, and start building your own AEM project!