AEM Deployment Models: On-Premise, Managed Service & AEM as a Cloud Service
AEM offers three deployment models: On-Premise, Managed Service & AEM as a Cloud Service. Each designed to meet different organizational needs, technical requirements, and strategic objectives. Understanding these options is crucial for making an informed decision that aligns with your business goals, technical capabilities, and budget constraints.
AEM On-Premise
In an On-Premise setup, AEM is deployed within a customer-managed environment, which could be corporate data center or public cloud infrastructure such as AWS, Azure or GCP.Adobe provides the AEM software package (e.g., the AEM JAR file) along with the necessary license file. The customer is responsible for setting up, configuring, and maintaining the entire environment. This includes provisioning infrastructure, configuring networking and security and managing the deployment process using tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions or other CI/CD pipelines.This model provides the highest level of control and customization, allowing organizations to tailor the environment to their specific needs. It is ideal for organizations that require a high degree of control over their infrastructure, have specific security requirements, or need to maintain compliance with local regulations.AEM Managed Service
With Managed Service, AEM is hosted on Adobe’s cloud infrastructure. Adobe is responsible for provisioning and managing the infrastructure.Adobe provides Cloud Manager as the recommended CI/CD pipeline for AMS, but customers can still deploy their code using other tools such as Azure Pipelines or Jenkins.AEM as a Cloud Service
AEM as a Cloud Service is Adobe’s fully cloud-native platform. Adobe manages the entire infrastructure, including auto-scaling, updates, performance optimization, and security.The customer focuses solely on content and experience delivery, application development, and front-end customization. CI/CD pipelines are integrated through Adobe Cloud Manager. Updates are rolled out continuously by Adobe without customer intervention.