AEM 6.5 and Java 17 - What We Know & How to Prepare
When AEM as a Cloud Service first launched in 2020, all of us (and every Adobe Engineering individual I’ve talked to) has been convinced that AEM 6.5 would be the last on-premise or self-hosted AEM version.
But times are changing! Give this a watch:
Updated 1 Oct 2024
Many more-official details will emerge after the end of October when the aforementioned “AEM 6.5 and JDK 17” talk happens at adaptTo(), at which point there will be much-more-official communication from Adobe. In the meantime, if you're curious about what any of this means for your existing on-premise, self-hosted or AMS plans, please reach out - I'd be happy to talk.
A New Version of AEM 6.x is on the Way
As noted in the adaptTo() brief, there will be a new version of Adobe Experience Manager 6.x released for on-premise, self-hosted and Adobe AEM Managed Services (AMS) customers. This will very likely be released as AEM 6.6 for early-access customer trials at the end of 2024 or beginning of 2025, with general availability & upgrade guidance being ready by the first quarter of 2025.
AEM 6.x Running on JDK 17 and JDK 21
The impetus for creating a new version of AEM was to be able to move AEM off of JDK 8 and JDK 11, and onto a more-modern Java version, so as to be able to solve for upstream security vulnerabilities that won't be patched in JDK 11 or JDK 8.
This has entailed a far-reaching engineering effort to refresh the Apache Oak, Java Content Repository, Sling core which comprises the "engine" of AEM, as well as other APIs and components to be able to run with JDK 17 & 21. The effort also includes being able to maintain the latest 6.5 Service Pack feature set (which has offered considerable new features since the original 6.5.0 release), as well as allowing for a long-term support strategy for customers who aim to continue to run AEM on-premise or on AMS for the conceivable future.
There will be some deprecated APIs and features that can’t make it to AEM 6.6, and as such there will certainly be a preparation and migration project for anyone who is still on 6.5 when this comes out.
AEM as a Cloud Service Will Move to JDK 21
AEM Cloud Service (which currently runs on Java 11) will be moving to a JDK 21 runtime. We don't have a timeline on this, at this time. Obviously much work will be done by Adobe to minimize the impact of this upgrade, but depending on your situation there may be a small or medium-size engineering project to think with in Q1 or early Q2 of 2025 to upgrade your development pipeline, Cloud Manager builds and codebase to run on JDK21.
We will update this page as more details come forth! Please contact us if you have any questions on how these coming changes impact your Adobe Experience Cloud stack plans for 2025 and into the future, we'd be happy to share what we know.
Tad Reeves
Principal Architect at Arbory Digital
AEM Architect & DevOps guy with 14 years experience on AEM/CQ and 25+ years in systems infrastructure. He’s been mountain biking longer than he’s been doing system administration, and though originally from Maine, makes his home in the mountains of Northwest Georgia.
Like what you heard? Have questions about what’s right for you? We’d love to talk! Contact Us
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