Author Integration with Dispatcher Steps & Advantages

[varaande]

Hi Team,

Recently adobe reviewed all our environments and recommended author also need to integrated with dispatcher ,even though we have NLB (Network Load Balancer to access AEM author/s servers ) & Publisher already integrated the Dispatcher 

Kindly let me know steps how to integrate author with Dispatcher & Benefits or advantages to integrate author with Dispatcher

Currently publish server integrated with dispatcher as below (dispatcher. Any)

# The load will be balanced among these render instances
/renders
{
/rend01
{
# Hostname or IP of the render
/hostname "localhost"
# Port of the render
/port "4503"
# Connect timeout in milliseconds, 0 to wait indefinitely
# /timeout "0"
}
}

Regards

Vara

[Harwinder-singh]

@varaande , Did Adobe share any feedback on why they recommended this ?

Besides, load balancing , dispatcher does offer an extra layer of security. May be that is one of the reasons.

You can check out these articles on how to setup dispatcher with AEM :

https://medium.com/@toimrank/aem-dispatcher-setup-9dd2cc8cf253

https://blogs.perficient.com/tag/dispatcher/

https://webfuse.in/blogs/setup-aem-dispatcher-for-author-instance-in-local-environment-on-windows/

[sherinregi]

Hi @varaande 

As per adobe documentation it improves the authoring performance. But as @Harwinder-singh  said its good to know from them on what are the pros of the same . If you have a huge author base may be that could be one of it .

The below snippet from adobe documentation says not to cache content on author dispatcher

I believe caching assets js/css shouldn't be a problem and something you can validate with them

For documentation specific to author dispatcher please refer the below link

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-dispatcher/using/dispatcher.html?lang=en#....

[aanchal-sikka · Accepted solution]

Hello @varaande 

While utilizing a dispatcher in front of an AEM author instance is an option, its advantages are somewhat constrained:

- Effective caching is challenging, given the dynamic nature of content on the author instance. There's a heightened risk of failing to trigger cache flushes, potentially leading to outdated content being presented on the author environment.

- Nevertheless, the dispatcher can still be employed to apply extended caching headers to relatively static content, such as product JavaScript and CSS files.

- It can provides extra layer of security

In AEM as a Cloud Service (AEM CS), a dispatcher is not employed in front of the AEM author instance, primarily due to its limited benefits. Additionally, it's essential to consider the security aspect of using a dispatcher in your AEM setup.

For setting up author, please refer to https://github.com/adobe/aem-project-archetype/tree/develop/src/main/archetype/dispatcher.ams.

It has samples for author specific files recommended by Adobe

You roughly will need author-specific:

- vhost

- Farm

- Filter rules

- Caching rules

- redirections if any