AEM Mobile Apps Concept

[#1]

Hi all,

I am still thinking in the lines of traditional AEM, where author enters the content, and after reviews/approval, it will be pushed to Publish.

And it is the Publish that serves data to the outside world.

This hold good for Mobile Web also.

But for Mobile Apps, we could push from Author to Mobile Apps. is it true? Probably we could push from Publish also.

What is the role of Publish server for AEM Mobile Apps?

Why is it a deviation for mobile apps?

Kindly send me a block diagram which shows author, publish, aem mobile, app store and mobile device.

Thanks,

Rama.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

APPSTORE is for App hosting and distribution

AEM Hybrid/PhoneGap Apps

Content is managed then staged (rendered and packaged into zips) on AEM-AUTHOR and published (zips replicate to) to AEM-PUBLISH.
Apps running on DEVICE can check for and pull app content updates (the packaged zips) from AEM-PUBLISH.

AEM Mobile Apps (using OnDemand Runtime)

Content is managed then uploaded from AEM-AUTHOR to AEM OnDemand hosted services.
AEM-PUBLISH is not used (in a typical deployment) given AEM OnDemand is managing the published content.
Apps running on DEVICE can check for and pull app content updates from OnDemand services.

[#3]

1. I'm not aware of a diagram that articulates this, i'll pass on the request
2. true, it is not used in a typical OnDemad app. However if your app plans to pull content directly from AEM at some point you will need one 
3. OnDemand hosted services is not an AEM instance/service and does not use the AEM Dispatcher, although being a SaaS likely has its own caching and load balancing 
4. AppStore host and distribute apps as there were provided by the app owner. Although the app once installed may pull in content the App in the App Store is a compiled binary that is eventually installed onto a device
5. ContentSync https://docs.adobe.com/docs/en/aem/6-2/develop/mobile-apps/contentsync.html is a framework to extract content from AEM. It is used by AEMMobile to export/etract content for use in mobile apps.

[#4]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

1. Is there a pictorial representation of this, to help me better understand? Since this knowledge is wide spread, there must be some diagrams somewhere!

2. So, in the AEM Mobile Apps (using OnDemand Runtime) topology, we do not need Publish instance at all?

3. Given that AEM OnDemand hosted services replaces Publish Server, is the Dispatcher connected to AEM OnDemand hosted services as opposed to Publish?

4. App Stores pull app content updates from AEM-PUBLISH or OnDemand services. How is it done? Polling? Is it Pull or Push?

5. In AEM terminology, there are two distinct items: Application (containing HTML, OSGI bundles, etc) and Content (author created pages).

How are these two updated to App Stores? Point # 3 above covers which of these two? How about the second one?

5. What is Content Sync used for?

Appreciate all your replies.

Thanks,

Rama.