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
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 Development Env (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.

Full-stack pipeline stages

1. Maven Build -- compiles your project (mvn clean install)
2. Unit Tests -- runs core/ tests
3. Code Quality -- static analysis checks (coverage, bugs, maintainability)
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)

Pipeline types

Besides the full-stack pipeline, Cloud Manager supports specialized pipelines:

Pipeline type	Deploys	Use when
Full-stack	All modules (core, ui.apps, ui.config, dispatcher, etc.)	Java, component, config, or Dispatcher changes
Frontend-only	Only ui.frontend (compiled CSS/JS)	CSS/JS-only changes -- much faster (~10 min)
Config-only	OSGi configs and Dispatcher config	Configuration changes without a full build

Frontend-only pipelines skip the Java build entirely, which dramatically shortens the deploy cycle for UI work. Config-only pipelines are useful for toggling feature flags or updating Dispatcher rules without redeploying code.

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, Frontend, or Config)
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 static analysis findings

Code quality gates

Cloud Manager enforces quality gates:

Gate area	Typical expectation
Unit test coverage	Meets configured threshold
Reliability	No blocking/high-severity defects
Security	No blocking/high-severity vulnerabilities
Maintainability	Within acceptable quality thresholds

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.

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]"
}

The $[env:...] and $[secret:...] placeholders are resolved by AEM at config loading time. To use these values in Java, read them through the OSGi configuration -- not directly from the environment:

@Component(service = AnalyticsService.class)
@Designate(ocd = AnalyticsConfig.class)
public class AnalyticsServiceImpl implements AnalyticsService {

    private String analyticsId;

    @Activate
    protected void activate(AnalyticsConfig config) {
        // The value comes from the .cfg.json that references $[env:ANALYTICS_ID]
        this.analyticsId = config.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

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

Migrating from AEM 6.5

If you are moving an existing AEM 6.5 project to AEMaaCS, the Content Transfer Tool (CTT) migrates content (pages, assets, users) from your on-premise or managed-services instance to the cloud. The tool handles extraction, ingestion, and validation. See the Content Transfer Tool documentation for details.

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-only, config-only
• Pipeline stages -- build, test, code quality, security, deploy
• Rapid Development Environments -- fast iteration with the RDE CLI
• Environment-specific config -- run modes, environment variables
• Monitoring -- logs, tailing
• Production checklist -- what to verify before going live
• Content Transfer Tool for AEM 6.5 to AEMaaCS migration

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)

Ready to put it all into practice? The next chapter has six hands-on projects -- from building a simple component to hardening a Dispatcher config -- designed to reinforce everything you have learned.

Next up: Practice Projects -- six progressively challenging projects to build your AEM skills through hands-on practice.

For reference material beyond the beginner guide, explore the AEM documentation section.