AEM Implementation War Stories - the Good, the Bad and the Terrifying
People commonly talk about “best practices” but what about “worst practices”? Smooth projects and disasters, we’ve seen it all. This podcast focuses on nearly 40 years of combined AEM/CQ implementations from our AEM architects, and lessons learned from the good and the downright frightening out of each of them.
Covered in This Podcast
- 0:00 - Intros from our AEM architect team
- 2:36 - Remembering the day Adobe bought Day Software
- 3:58 - CQ5 and then WEM/WCM and then Adobe CQ and then AEM
- 4:36 - Adobe as a good-fit steward for CQ & AEM
- 7:12 - What was the best-composed AEM team you were a part of?
- 9:24 - It's hard to retain a quality AEM team in-house
- 16:57 - The best AEM CI/CD pipeline & process?
- 18:52 - Commit messaging enforcement
- 19:30 - Promoting AEM release artifacts instead of re-building
- 21:19 - The ugliest & most anti-pattern AEM release process
- 24:20 - AEM pipelines can get way too prescriptive & complex
- 24:57 - Automating AEM upgrades & maintenance
- 27:37 - Infrastructure-as-code with a big monolith like AEM
- 29:31 - The time-honored tradition of the self-DDOS
- 30:30 - Outage guesswork due to lack of log aggregation
- 31:13 - You have to have people who know what an anomaly looks like
- 32:35 - The critical importance of excellent/complete dashboards
- 33:15 - Best dashboard? Worst dashboard? Same company, unfortunately
- 36:35 - Erroneous cost-cutting decisions can be deadly
- 38:00 - The pitfall of relying only on front-end monitoring
- 39:05 - Backend monitoring applies to AEM Cloud Service
- 40:50 - Planning AEM upgrades & service packs
- 42:46 - The dreaded AEM 6.2 to 6.5 migration
- 44:02 - The importance of discovery projects
- 46:37 - The "40% rule"
- 48:17 - The worst project management & not seeing the future
- 53:40 - "Experience" and knowing requirements
References & More Info
More helpful info on some of the subjects brought up in this podcast:
- AEM deployment paradigms: The ye-olde blog post I referenced in the podcast on the ideal AEM deployment pipeline is still, shockingly, mostly still relevant. Visualizing the Perfect AEM Code Deployment Process - OpsInventor
- Log Aggregation & Splunk for AEM: Blog | Using Splunk for Log Search & Monitoring on AEM as a Cloud Service (arborydigital.com)
- The History of AEM: In case you’re interested, this article has a history of AEM since before its Adobe acquisition: Blog | History Of Adobe Experience Manager (arborydigital.com)
Please give our podcast a listen, and reach out if you’d like to discuss how new infrastructure models like this might work for your environment! Please reach out!
Podcast Speakers
Tad Reeves
Principal Architect at Arbory Digital
Tad has been working with Adobe products since 2010 and has extensive experience in website infrastructure. Starting in 1996, he has worn nearly every hat in website delivery from solution architecture to product management, and has over two decades of experience. He loves that Arbory gives him the opportunity to provide honest and effective solutions, even if it means challenging prevailing sales perspectives. When Tad isn’t working, he enjoys mountain biking and exploring nature with his wife & 3 kids.
Bryce Acer
CEO at Arbory Digital
With sixteen years in the tech field, specializing in Adobe software, Bryce’s career began in web content for pharmaceuticals and finance. After consulting for companies like Crown Partners and DCQ (Day Software), he founded Arbory Digital. He is passionate about helping companies succeed through honest, efficient tech solutions. At Arbory, he believes in integrity and realistic advice for successful outcomes. In his free time, Bryce enjoys golf, softball, volleyball, beach activities, live music, and traveling.
Dwayne Hale
CTO at Arbory Digital
Dwayne developed an early fascination with network administration and has over ten years of professional experience. After working within the AEM space for more than a decade, he became an architect at Arbory, and eventually the CTO. He believes Arbory Digital stands out for its transparency and the opportunity to explore various interests which keeps his work dynamic and engaging. When Dwayne isn’t working, you’ll likely find him fishing, gardening, or with his wife & 3 kids, and getting as far from screens as possible.
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