In my 15-year journey as a solution consultant and enterprise architect with DX (digital experience), I've learned many valuable lessons that have shaped my success in leading DX implementations. Over the last four years, I've been deeply involved in cloud transitions and migrations, driving digital transformations. I want to share some valuable tools and insights that have helped. Each project is unique, so tools and processes must be tailored to fit specific needs. In this article, I will outline the process and steps we took for a complex modernization and migration of Adobe Experience Manager on-prem to the cloud.

Key Preparation Steps

Successfully migrating to Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service with modernization and transformation requires meticulous planning and preparation. This involves thorough assessments, strategic processes, and well-defined migration strategies to ensure a smooth transition and minimize risks.

A - Conduct a Platform Assessment

A comprehensive platform assessment is crucial to understand and review the business pain points that the current system is facing. This involves auditing information architecture, components, and templates to ensure they align with the desired state post-migration. Security is a top priority; therefore, it is essential to ensure cloud compatibility of all plugins and APIs. Additionally, evaluating the performance and scalability of the platform is necessary to accommodate future growth. Integrations should be reviewed, and technical debt should be assessed to identify any potential challenges that could hinder the migration process. By addressing these areas, businesses can build a solid foundation for their digital experience modernization as part of the Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service migration, ensuring a seamless and efficient transition.

B - Establish Processes and Governance

Effective processes and governance are fundamental to success. Reviewing current development practices and processes helps identify areas for improvement and ensures they are aligned with best practices. Streamlining content-authoring workflows and processes is essential for enhancing efficiency and reducing bottlenecks in the content supply chain.

Clearly defining roles and responsibilities ensures that all team members understand their tasks and contributions to the project. In addition, processes to manage release cycles effectively are critical to maintaining a consistent and predictable deployment schedule. Establishing comprehensive training, communication, and support plans is vital to ensure that everyone involved is well-prepared and that any issues can be addressed promptly. By focusing on these areas, businesses can create a robust governance framework that supports migration and ensures long-term success.

Illustrative Repo & Continuous Integration /Continuous Delivery pipeline, process to manage releases effectively.

A Sample RACI Model for effective execution, governance, and communication.

C - Evaluate Migration Approaches

Choosing the right migration approach is crucial as it determines the speed, risk, and overall impact of the transition to Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service. Organizations can consider several strategies such as big-bang, phased, and hybrid approaches. Building consensus and making the right decision can be challenging, so utilizing a simple decision tree tool can help facilitate this process.

An example (Decision Tree Method)

D - Develop Your Migration Strategy

Developing a robust migration strategy is essential for minimizing risks and ensuring a smooth transition to Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service. It is essential to compare the pros and cons of different migration approaches, such as big-bang versus phased or hybrid strategies. Planning ways to achieve zero downtime during migration is critical to maintaining business continuity.

For large data sets, developing a detailed content migration strategy is necessary to handle the volume and complexity of the data. Ensuring data integrity and validation throughout the migration process is crucial to maintaining the accuracy and reliability of the data. Finally, developing a rollback and decommission plan provides a safety net in case of unforeseen issues, allowing for a smooth fallback if needed. By carefully planning and executing these strategies, businesses can ensure a successful migration to Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service.

Ways to achieve business continuity and zero downtime during the modernization phase.

Content Migration Tools That Have Helped

Effective content migration requires the correct set of tools to ensure a seamless transition and accurate rendering of functionality and content. Below is a list of tools that align with various migration strategies and the specific content sources involved.

Content Transformation

As part of platform modernization, transforming content resources is crucial to ensure functionality and content are rendered accurately. We have utilized several methods, highlighting the most effective ones here.

• Groovy and Python Scripts: Most of the Java content repository resource transformation work is completed using Groovy scripts. However, Python and APIs are also employed to handle edge cases. Note: Groovy scripts are not recommended due to security reasons, so plan their use carefully.
• ACS Commons: Useful for content fragment import and export, including managing exceptional redirects while migrating dispatcher and content delivery network, an example Akamai.

Available Tools

Most of the time, the available out-of-the-box and Apache tools are sufficient; however, based on the use case, you may develop custom tools to address specific needs. Here are some recommended tools and methods to ensure content is accurately transformed, synchronized, and migrated during the migration process.

The Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service and Tool continues to evolve hence new capabilities are added or upgraded.

I Wish I Had Known This Earlier

In hindsight, there are several critical items that must be addressed to avoid setbacks during the migration process. Here are key insights and recommendations based on our experience:

• Handling Large Content Set: Develop strategies for managing and migrating large content sets to the cloud efficiently.
• Large Asset Management: For assets larger than 5 GB, plan for potential upload and download request timeouts from the publish node.
• Content Synchronization: Implement robust methods for synchronizing large sets of content from production to non-production environments.
• Author Auto Scaling Challenges: Prepare for potential auto-scaling challenges with Adobe Experience Manager authors, ensuring resources are managed effectively while working with your customer success manager.
• Managing Customized OT Packages: Address the complexities of managing Adobe Experience Manager Guide customized OT packages.
• Handling Common and Shared Artifact Repositories: Establish efficient ways to handle enterprise common and shared artifact repositories.
• Content Fragment Bulk Import/Export: Optimize the process for content fragment bulk import and export, including rich text data correction.
• Restoring Specific Content Sets: Develop methods for restoring specific content sets as needed.
• Managing Forward Proxies: Ensure efficient management of forward proxies to maintain performance and security.
• Video Thumbnail Management: Unlike on-premises setups, manage video thumbnails without skipping the first 3-second frame.
• Using Converter Tools: Utilize converter tools such as workflow, dispatcher, and repository. However, it's recommended to start from a clean slate for better maintainability and future-proofing.

Takeaways

What we learn is continually evolving. Here are some key areas to focus on with your DX platform modernization and transformation.

Recently, we have seen many customers facing challenges with monolithic deployments. They aim to achieve seamless digital experience delivery, focusing on business functionality and time to market. Moving to the cloud alone will not resolve all issues unless the platform is fully prepared for business needs, self-service capabilities, and seamless content delivery across channels.

In my upcoming blog, I'll share some risks and lessons learned to help you navigate your cloud journey successfully. To learn more about how Blue Acorn iCi can help your organization achieve a successful Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service migration, contact us.