Hi @Raider52
Adobe documentation captures all the scenarios for AEM upgrade.
Please refer to it at [1]. On a high level, the changes are:
- Upgrading the AEM instance - you can do either in-place upgrade or fresh install approach based on your content size.
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- Upgrade your artefacts by compiling against 6.5 uber jar.
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- Test and fix any issues due to deprecated features/overlaid capabilities change.
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- From 6.3, as part of sustainable upgrades process, there is a repository restructuring that can be done (not mandatory). Refer to it at [2]
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- Process on how to rollout the changes to production.
If this is hard, adobe offers a backward compatibility mode from 6.3 with which you can run a 6.3 aem artifact on a 6.5 instance. Read more at [3] Pattern detector is a mechanism provided by Adobe to easy identify of possible problems that will come up during upgrade by validating against deprecated features and overlays. Refer more at [4]
AEM 6.5 is compatible with Java 8 and 11. Refer to [5]
[1] - https://docs.adobe.com/content/help/en/experience-manager-65/deploying/upgrading/upgrade.html
[2] - https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-65/deploying/restructuring/repository-res...
[3] - https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-65/deploying/upgrading/backward-compatibi...
[4] - https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-65/deploying/upgrading/pattern-detector.h...
[5] - https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-65/deploying/introduction/technical-requi...
We have already migrated multiple projects from AEM 6.3.x to 6.5.x version and it was really a smooth migration without any impact. So it should be pretty easy for you if you are following the above steps as mentioned in the Adobe documentation.
Hope this helps!
Thanks!