Content Migration AMS to AEMaaCS

PublishedOctober 03, 2024

Content transfer is a crucial step when migrating AEM projects to AEMaaCS, especially with large volumes of content. To streamline this process, Adobe provides Content Transfer Tool (CTT), which can be used to initiate the migration of existing content from a source AEM instance (on-premise or AMS) to the target AEM Cloud Service instance.

CTT does not perform any kind of content analysis before transferring content from the source instance to the target instance. For example, CTT does not differentiate between published and unpublished content while ingesting content into a Publish environment. Whatever content is specified in the migration set is ingested into the chosen target instance. A user can ingest a migration set into an Author instance or Publish instance or both. Adobe recommends that while moving content to a Production instance, CTT be installed on the source Author instance to move content to the target Author instance. And, similarly, install CTT on the source Publish instance to move content to the target Publish instance.

Content Transfer Tool can be downloaded as a zip file from the Software Distribution Portal. You can install the package via Package Manager on your source AEM instance. Make sure to download the latest version.

There are two phases associated with content transfer:

Extraction: Extracting content from the source AEM instance into a temporary area called migration set.
Ingestion: Ingesting content from the migration set into the target Cloud Service instance.

CTT also transfers groups automatically. However, CTT version 3.0.20 and later includes an option to disable groups migration.

Content Transfer Disable Group Migration

Migration Set Configuration

Before extracting content from the source AEM instance, Migration Set needs to be created on the target Cloud Manager instance. From Cloud Acceleration Manager (CAM), create a new project if you haven't already. Then, click on the Content Transfer and proceed by creating Migration Set.

You should now see your migration sets in the list view. Click the three dots symbol (…) to open the drop-down menu, then select Copy Extraction Key. This key is required when creating the migration set on the source AEM instance.

From the source AEM instance, navigate to Tools > Operations > Content Migration > Content Transfer, and then click on Create Migration Set.

In the Create Migration Set window, paste the Extraction Key that was copied earlier from CAM into the Extraction Key field. This will automatically populate the Migration Set Name and CAM Project Name fields. Next, add the Content Paths, and then save the Migration Set. Make sure that Extraction Key is valid and is not near its expiration.

After creating the Migration Set, it is highly recommended to Check Size on the Migration Set before starting Extraction process. By running Size Check on the Migration Set, you are able to determine if there is sufficient disk space in the crx-quickstart subdirectory to complete Extraction successfully. This is because CTT creates a local copy of the repository that is later uploaded to migration set.

Once Check Size process is completed, the status will change to FINISHED. If the results indicate insufficient disk space, WARNING status will be displayed.

Extracting Content from Source

Select a migration set from the Content Transfer wizard and click Extract to start extraction.

The Extraction field now displays the RUNNING status to indicate that the extraction is in-progress. You can click View Progress to get a granular view of the on-going extraction.

You can also monitor the Extraction phase progress from Cloud Acceleration Manager by visiting the Content Transfer page, and see it in more details by clicking … > View details.

Cloud Acceleration Manager - Migration Set Details

The Content Transfer Tool has a feature that supports differential content top-up where it is possible to transfer only changes made since the previous content transfer activity. You can transfer delta content by using top-up extraction method; simply disable the Overwrite staging container during extraction option for any subsequent extractions.

Ingesting Content into Cloud Service

Make sure you have administrators access on target AEM Cloud Service environment. Unprivileged users need to manually provide the migration token to start ingestion.

Content Ingestion - Local Administrators Access

If the target tier is Author, the author instance is shut down for the duration of the ingestion, making it unavailable to users. This measure protects the system and prevents any changes that could be lost or cause an ingestion conflict. Also ensure that no Cloud Manager pipelines are executed while you are running the Ingestion phase. However, during ingestion to the publish tier, the publish instance will not be scaled down, unlike the author instance.

Navigate to Cloud Acceleration Manager. Select your project card and click on the Content Transfer card. Go to Ingestion Jobs and click on New Ingestion.

You can monitor the ingestion process from the Ingestion Jobs list view. For a more detailed view, including the duration of each step during or after ingestion, use the action menu, click the ellipsis (…), and select View durations.

Once you have completed the content ingestion into Cloud Service, you can view the content in the target Cloud Service.