Can we enable dispatcher caching on author AEM as a Cloud?

[Abhishek_Narula25]

Is caching on author AEM cloud supported?

I am working on migration from AEM 6.5 AMS to AEM Cloud. Currently, working on making the dispatcher changes cloud compatible. I am following the below link:

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/implementing/conten...

In the above article it says "Rename PUBLISH_DOCROOT to DOCROOT". Also, it says get rid of all the non-publish vhosts which makes me wonder if dispatcher caching is supported on author AEM Cloud?

[Madhur-Madan]

Hi @Abhishek_Narula25 ,

The Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Dispatcher is typically used on the publish instance rather than the author instance.

1. Author Instance: This is the environment where content authors and editors create, modify, and manage content. It is not typically exposed to the public internet. Caching mechanisms on the author instance are generally limited to optimizing the authoring experience and do not have the same emphasis on content delivery as the publish environment.

2. Publish Instance: This is the environment where content is published and made available to the public. The publish instance is responsible for serving content to end-users. The Dispatcher is often installed on the publish instance and is configured to cache and deliver static content, reducing the load on the AEM instance and improving response times.
   
   

Also, as mentioned in the link you will need to install docker in order to do a local testing

[Abhishek_Narula25]

Hi @Madhur-Madan  I am aware why we use author and publish instance.

We already have dispatcher caching enabled on author on AEM 6.5 AMS due to some requirement.

My only ask here is if author dispatcher caching is supported on AEM Cloud as well?

[Madhur-Madan]

Hi @Abhishek_Narula25 , 

Yes it is possible to do author caching on AEMaacs. You can follow the link to understand more about Author Caching on AEMaacs
https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-learn/ams/dispatcher/understanding-cache....

[Abhishek_Narula25]

Hi @Madhur-Madan 

This is AMS. On AMS, we are already doing author caching but https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/implementing/conten... says we need to rename PUBLISH_DOCROOT to DOCROOT which only points to /mnt/var/www/html

[narendragandhi]

Hi @Abhishek_Narula25 

In AEM as a Cloud Service, there is no dispatcher for author, instead there is a Adobe Managed CDN for the same purpose. Please refer this document for details on architecture on how its setup - https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-learn/cloud-service/caching/author.html?l....

Thanks

Narendra

[Abhishek_Narula25]

Hi @narendragandhi I had a look at the article but it says "AEM Author CDN caches immutable files, such as static assets that power the AEM authoring experience, and not authored content."

We are using AEM as a headless and caching the API response. AEM Author CDN might not help here.

[Peter_Puzanovs]

Hi Abhishek,

In AEM as a Cloud Service you probably want to utilise Preview Service[1] this way you will show Authored content to any interested party before it goes to Live.

Preview has standard Publisher to render content and Dispatcher to cache content.

[1] https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/sites/authoring/fun...

Regards,

Peter

[Rohan_Garg]

@Abhishek_Narula25 - Yes, caching on AEMaaCS is supported

Please refer to below docs - 

Caching AEMaaCS

Also for cache invalidation - 

Hope this helps!

[EstebanBustamante]

Hi @Abhishek_Narula25 

As pointed out by @narendragandhi, the Author service lacks a dispatcher, making it impossible to customize your cache strategy. Additionally, the article he shared clearly emphasizes that this approach is discouraged[1]. It seems there might be a misunderstanding regarding the purpose of Author, Publisher, and Preview instances. If you are implementing a headless solution, it is advisable to consume data from a publisher instance (either preview or publish), as mentioned by @Peter_Puzanovs. If your goal is to test before publishing, consider exploring concepts like different environments or utilizing the preview functionality.

I hope this clarifies your question to some extent

[1]. 

[Abhishek_Narula25]

Hi @EstebanBustamante Thanks for your reply.

We are using AEM as headless and consuming data from Publish instance only but we have a preview system (WCS) which is connected to our author environment to get all the pages which will be published at a later point of time.

So, sometimes timeouts happen. We increased the timeout from 3 seconds to even 8 seconds but still sometime it takes more (not sure if it is a latency issue) and pages go blank. That's why we came up with a plan to enable caching on AEM author so that the frequency of timeouts is reduced. This was on AEM 6.5 AMS.

Now, we are migrating to AEM as a cloud, so was checking here to see if we can go with the same approach or need to find some better solution.

[kautuk_sahni]

@Abhishek_Narula25 Did you find the suggestions from users helpful? Please let us know if more information is required. Otherwise, please mark the answer as correct for posterity. If you have found out solution yourself, please share it with the community.