Understanding Author and Publish Instances
Introduction to AEM’s Dual Instance Architecture
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) operates on a dual instance architecture, consisting of the Author and Publish instances. This architecture is fundamental to AEM’s content management and delivery approach, ensuring both flexibility and security in managing and displaying web content.
What are Author and Publish Instances?
- Author Instance:
- The environment where content creators and marketers create, edit, and manage content.
- It’s a workspace for authoring pages, adding components, adjusting layouts, and previewing content before it goes live.
- Typically, this instance is restricted to internal networks for security purposes.
- Publish Instance:
- The environment where the end-users interact with the content.
- Once content is finalized and published from the Author instance, it becomes visible here.
- This instance is exposed to the public internet, allowing access to the website’s visitors.
The Differences Between Author and Publish Instances
- Access Control: The Author instance is a secured, internal environment with restricted access, while the Publish instance is publicly accessible.
- Content Management: Content creation and editing happen only on the Author instance. The Publish instance displays the content but doesn’t allow editing.
- Workflow and Approval: The Author instance often includes workflows for content approval before publishing.
Why Two Instances?
- Security and Control: Separating environments ensures that in-progress content isn’t publicly visible and provides a controlled space for content creation.
- Performance Optimization: The Publish instance is optimized for fast content delivery, while the Author instance is optimized for content management functionalities.
- Stability and Reliability: This separation minimizes the risk of authoring activities impacting the performance of the live site.
Page Authoring in AEM
Page authoring in AEM involves creating and organizing content in a user-friendly interface. Content authors use various components to build pages, adjust layouts, add images, and more. They can preview how the content will look on the live site, make adjustments, and prepare it for publication.
Publishing Content on the Publish Instance
Once content authoring is complete, the content is ‘published’. This process involves:
- Sending the finalized content from the Author instance to the Publish instance.
- Making the content live and accessible to the end-users.
- This is typically done via replication, a process that synchronizes the content between the Author and Publish instances.
Conclusion
In AEM, the distinction between Author and Publish instances is a key aspect of its architecture, providing a secure and efficient way to manage and deliver web content. It allows for a streamlined content management process, from creation and editing in the Author instance to delivering the final content to end-users through the Publish instance. Understanding this architecture is essential for effectively working with AEM.