Upgrade from AEM 5.6.1 to AEM 6.3

[BinayN]

Hi Folks,

Background:

I have gone through online documentation "Upgrade to AEM 6.3" and other related documents in "Adobe Experience Manager Learn & Support".

I believe every project is unique and different from its own complexity. On top of it there are various other factors as a deciding factor for the upgrade path - inPlace Upgrade or New Instance upgrade.

Question:

Q1. What could be the migration path (inPlace vs. Upgrade)? what all factors to be consider? any pros and cons?
(Few things i can think of - Through recommended approach from Adobe in inPlace, but there might be few other factors to be consider which might impact in decision. Say, code quality, clean/structure content and code, versioning required or not, if code is in jsp or htl, complex code and if deprecated api used etc.)

Q2. What all should be the key technically lookout point?
(Few thinks i can think of - Infrastructure HDD RAM etc, Java version, Repository and its size, DAM and its structure, Code quality, Code Customization, Authentication, etc.)Much appreciate if you can share your learnings ?

Many thanks in advance for your support

Thanks

Bnay

[Kunwar · Accepted solution]

I'd prefer the inplace upgrade from 5.x to 6.3 as you need to update to the complete repo, build indexes etc. Everything specific to AEM would be taken care with this process. Example, if you are still relying on classic UI and had deprecated extjs widgets, UI might break in 6.3.  There are multiple upgrade steps that care of such things like HTML5SmartImage, inbox Items conversion to name a few.

Once the product has been upgraded, then you need recompile the custom code with Uber jar for 6.3 and down the process you'd what you need to refactor and change and later deploy everything on new AEM release.

Technical requirements are almost the same except the JDK 1.8 support but technical requirement docs should help and see if you qualify for each.

[BinayN]

Many thanks Kunwar​ for your response.

Thank you.