Technical Requirements

Adobe supports Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) on the platforms as detailed in the following information in this document.

For any issues that are specifically related to the platform itself, please contact the platform vendor directly.

NOTE

Depending upon the platform on which you install AEM, there could be different sets of requirements for user management.

Prerequisites

Minimum requirements for installing Adobe Experience Manager:

  • Installed Java Platform, Standard Edition JDK, or other supported Java Virtual Machines
  • Experience Manager Quickstart file (Standalone JAR or web-application deployment WAR)

Minimum Sizing Requirements

Minimum requirements for running Adobe Experience Manager:

  • 5 GB free disk space in the installation directory
  • 2 GB memory
NOTE

Please see the Hardware Sizing Guidelines for further information.

Support Levels

This document lists the supported client and server platforms for Adobe Experience Manager. Adobe provides several levels of support, both for recommended configurations and other configurations.

Supported Configurations

Adobe recommends these configurations and provides full support as part of the standard software maintenance agreement.

Support Level Description
A: Supported Adobe provides full support and maintenance for this configuration. This configuration is covered by Adobe's quality assurance process.
R: Restricted Support To ensure our customers project success, Adobe provides full support within a restricted support program, which requires that specific conditions are met. R-level support requires a formal customer request and confirmation by Adobe. For more informations, please contact Adobe Customer Care.

Unsupported Configurations

Support Level Description
Z: Not supported The configuration is not supported. Adobe does not make any statements about whether the configuration works, and does not support it.

Supported Platforms

Java Virtual Machines

The application requires a Java Virtual Machine to run, which is provided by the Java Development Kit (JDK) distribution.

Adobe Experience Manager operates with the following versions of the Java Virtual Machines:

CAUTION

It is recommended to track the Security Bulletins from the Java vendor to ensure the safety and security of production environments and install the latest Java Updates.

Platform Support Level
Oracle Java SE 11 JDK [1] Z: Not supported
Oracle Java SE 10 JDK [1] Z: Not supported
Oracle Java SE 9 JDK [1] Z: Not supported
Oracle Java SE 8 JDK - 64bit A: Supported [3]
IBM J9 VM - build 2.9, JRE 1.8.0 [2] A: Supported
IBM J9 VM - build 2.8, JRE 1.8.0 [2] A: Supported

  1. Oracle has moved to a “Long Term Support” (LTS) model for Oracle Java SE products. Java 9 and 10 are non-LTS releases by Oracle (see Oracle Java SE support roadmap). Adobe will only provide support for LTS releases of Java to run AEM in production.

  2. The IBM JRE is only supported in conjunction with WebSphere Application Server.

  3. Support and distribution of the Oracle Java SE JDK, including all maintenance updates of LTS releases beyond the end of the public updates, will be supported by Adobe directly for all AEM customers making use of the Oracle Java SE technology. See the Oracle Java support for Adobe Experience Manager Q&A for more information.

Storage & Persistence

Various options exist to deploy the repository of Adobe Experience Manager. See the following list for supported technologies and storage options.

Platform Description Support Level
File system with TAR files [1] Repository A: Supported
File system with Datastore [1] Binaries A: Supported
Store binaries in TAR files on file system [1] Binaries Z: Not supported for production
Amazon S3 Binaries A: Supported
Microsoft Azure Blob Storage Binaries A: Supported
MongoDB Enterprise 3.6 [5, 6] Repository A: Supported with limitations
MongoDB Enterprise 3.4 [2, 3, 6] Repository A: Supported with limitations
MySQL 5.7 Forms Database A: Supported
IBM DB2 11.1
 Forms Database A: Supported
IBM DB2 10.5 Repository & Forms Database R: Restricted Support (4)
Oracle Database 12c (12.1.x) Repository & Forms Database R: Restricted Support
Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Forms Database Z: Not supported (4)
Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Forms Database A: Supported
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Forms Database R: Restricted Support (4)
Apache Lucene (Quickstart built-in) Search Service A: Supported
Apache Solr Search Service A: Supported
  1. ‘File System’ includes block storage that is POSIX compliant. This includes network storage technology. Mind that file system performance might vary and influences the overall performance. It is recommended to load test AEM in combination with the network/remote file system.
  2. MongoDB Sharding is not supported in AEM.
  3. MongoDB Storage Engine WiredTiger is supported only.
  4. Not supported for AEM Forms.
  5. MongoDB Enterprise 3.6 is supported starting with AEM version 6.4.2.0.
  6. Support for MongoDB 3.4 has reached end of life (EOL), while MongoDB 3.6 is expected to reach EOL on April 30th, 2021. Please note that Adobe will only be providing support for AEM product related issues going forward.
NOTE

See Deploying Communities for additional information regarding the AEM Communities capability.

NOTE

MongoDB is third-party software and is not included in the AEM licensing package. For more information see the MongoDB licensing policy page.

In order to get the most of your AEM deployment with MongoDB, Adobe recommends licensing the MongoDB Enterprise version in order to benefit from professional support. See Recommended Deployments for more information.

The license includes a standard replica set, which is composed of one primary and two secondary instances that can be used for either the author or the publish deployments.

In case you wish to run both author and publish on MongoDB, two separate licenses need to be purchased.

Adobe Customer Care will assist qualifying issues related to the usage of MongoDB with AEM.

For more information, see the MongoDB for Adobe Experience Manager page.

NOTE

Supported relational databases as listed above are third-party software and are not included in the AEM licensing package.

In order to run AEM 6.4 with a supported relational database, a separate support contract with a database vendor is required. Adobe Customer Care will assist qualifying issues related to the usage of relational databases with AEM 6.4.

Please note, that most relational databases are currently supported within Level-R on AEM 6.4, which comes with support criteria and a support program as stated in the Level-R description above.

Servlet Engines / Application Servers

Adobe Experience Manager can run either as a standalone server (the quickstart JAR file) or as web application within a third party application server (the WAR file).

Minimum Servlet API Version required is Servlet 3.1, but below Servlet 4.0.

Platform Support Level
Quickstart built-in Servlet Engine (Jetty 9.3) A: Supported
Oracle WebLogic Server 12.2 (12cR2) A: Supported
IBM WebSphere Application Server Continuous Delivery (LibertyProfile) with Web Profile 7.0 and IBM JRE 1.8 A: Supported
IBM WebSphere Application Server 9.0 A: Supported
Apache Tomcat 8.5.x A: Supported
JBoss EAP 7.1.0 with JBoss Application Server A: Supported (1)
JBoss EAP 7.0.0 with JBoss Application Server A: Supported
  1. Not supported for AEM Forms.

Server Operating Systems

Adobe Experience Manager works with the following server platforms:

Platform Support Level
Linux, based on Red Hat distribution A: Supported (1)
Linux, based on Debian distribution incl. Ubuntu A: Supported (4)
Linux, based on SUSE distribution A: Supported
Microsoft Windows Server 2016 A: Supported
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 A: Supported
Oracle Solaris 11 A: Supported with limitations (3,5,7)
R: Restricted Support for new contracts
IBM AIX 7.2 A: Supported with limitations (2,5,7)
R: Restricted Support for new contracts
  1. Linux Kernel 2.6, 3.x and 4.x includes derivatives from Red Hat distribution, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Oracle Linux and Amazon Linux. AEM Forms add-on features are only supported on CentOS 7 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
  2. AEM Assets: Please see the section Support for XMP metadata write-back
  3. AEM Assets: No support for Dynamic Media Imaging. Dynamic Media Video is supported.
  4. AEM Forms is supported only on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
  5. AEM Assets: No support for Raw file transformation
  6. AEM Forms: No support for production environment
  7. AEM Assets: No support for enhanced PDF Rasterizer
  8. AEM Forms: Not supported

Virtual & Cloud Computing Environments

Adobe Experience Manager is supported running in a virtual machine on cloud computing environments, such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS), in compliance with the technical requirements listed on this page, and according to Adobe’s standard support terms.

Adobe recommends using Adobe Managed Services to deploy AEM on Azure or AWS. Adobe Managed Services provides experts with experience and skills of deploying and operating AEM in these cloud computing environments. Please check out our additional documentation on Adobe Managed Services.

In all other cases of deploying AEM on Azure or AWS, or any other cloud computing environment, support from Adobe will be contained to the virtual compute environment in compliance with the technical specifications listed on this page. Any reported issue relative to AEM running in any of these cloud environments will need to be reproducible independently from any cloud service specific to the cloud computing environment, unless the cloud service is specifically supported as part of the technical requirements listed on this page, for example Azure Blob storage or AWS S3.

For recommendations on how to deploy AEM on Azure or AWS, outside of Adobe Managed Services, we strongly recommend working directly with the cloud provider or Adobe partners supporting the deployment of AEM in the cloud environment of your choice. The selected cloud provider or partner will be responsible for the sizing specifications, design and implementation of the architecture., to meet your specific performance, load, scalability, and security requirements.

Dispatcher Platforms (Web Servers)

The Dispatcher is the caching and load balancing component. Download the latest Dispatcher version. Experience Manager 6.4 requires Dispatcher version 4.3.1 or higher.

The following web servers are supported for use with Dispatcher version 4.3.1:

Platform Support Level
Apache httpd 2.4.x (see also 1,2 below ) A: Supported
Microsoft IIS 10 (Internet Information Server) A: Supported
Microsoft IIS 8.5 (Internet Information Server) A: Supported

  1. Web servers built on the basis of Apache httpd source code will have the same level of support as the version of httpd on which it is based. If in doubt, please ask Adobe for confirmation of the support level related to the respective server product. Following cases:

    1. The HTTP server was built using only official Apache source distributions, or
    2. The HTTP server was delivered as part of the operating system on which it is running. Examples: IBM HTTP Server, Oracle HTTP Server

  2. Dispatcher is not available for Apache 2.4.x for Windows operating systems.

Supported Client Platforms

Supported Browsers for Authoring User Interface

The Adobe Experience Manager user interface works with the following client platforms. All browsers are tested with the default set of plug-ins and add-ons.

The AEM user interface is optimized for larger screens (typically notebooks and desktop computers) and tablet form factor (such as Apple iPad or Microsoft Surface). The phone form factor is not supported.

NOTE

Support for browsers with rapid release cycles:

Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge release updates every few months. Adobe is committed to provide updates for Adobe Experience Manager to maintain the support level as stated below with upcoming versions of these browsers.

Browser Support for UI
 Support for Classic UI
Google Chrome (Evergreen) A: Supported A: Supported
Microsoft Edge (Evergreen) A: Supported A: Supported
Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 A: Supported A: Supported
Mozilla Firefox (Evergreen) A: Supported A: Supported
Mozilla Firefox last ESR [1] A: Supported A: Supported
Apple Safari 12.x on macOS A: Supported A: Supported
Apple Safari 11.x on macOS A: Supported A: Supported
Apple Safari 10.x on macOS A: Supported A: Supported
Apple Safari on iOS 12.x A: Supported [2] Z: Not supported
Apple Safari on iOS 11.x A: Supported [2] Z: Not supported
Apple Safari on iOS 10.3 A: Supported [2] Z: Not supported
  1. Extended Support Release of Firefox Learn more about this on mozilla.org
  2. support for Apple iPad

Supported Browsers for Websites

Generally, browser support for websites rendered by AEM Sites depends on the implementation of AEM page templates, design and component output, and is therefore in control of the party implementing these parts.

WebDAV Clients

Microsoft Windows 7+

To successfully connect with Microsoft Windows 7+ to an AEM instance that is not secured with SSL, basic authentication over unsecured network must be enabled in Windows. This requires a change in the Windows Registry of the WebClient:

  1. Locate the registry subkey:

    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WebClient\Parameters

  2. Add the BasicAuthLevel registry entry to this subkey using a value of 2 or more.

See Microsoft Support KB 841215.

To improve responsivness of the WebDav Client under Windows - see Microsoft Support KB 2445570

Additional Platform Notes

This section provides special notes and more detailed information about running Adobe Experience Manager and its add-ons.

IPv4 and IPv6

All elements of Adobe Experience Manager (Instance, Dispatcher) can be installed in both IPv4 and IPv6 networks.

Operation is seamless as no special configuration is required. You can simply specify an IP address using the format that is appropriate to your network type, if neccessary.

This means that when an IP address needs to be specified you can select (as required) from:

  • an IPv6 address

    for example https://[ab12::34c5:6d7:8e90:1234]:4502

  • an IPv4 address

    for example https://123.1.1.4:4502

  • a server name

    for example, https://www.yourserver.com:4502

  • the default case of localhost will be interpreted for both IPv4 and IPv6 network installations

    for example, http://localhost:4502

Requirements for AEM Dynamic Media Add-on

AEM Dynamic Media is disabled by default. See Enabling Dynamic Media.

With Dynamic Media enabled, the following additional system requirements apply:

NOTE

The following system requirements apply only if you use Dynamic Media - Hybrid mode; Dynamic Media - Hybrid mode has an embedded image server, which is only certified on certain operating systems.

For Dynamic Media customers who run Dynamic Media - Scene7 mode (that is, dynamicmedia_scene7 runmode), there are no additional system requirements; only the same system requirements as AEM. Dynamic Media - Scene7 mode architecture uses the cloud-based image service, not the service embedded in AEM.

Hardware

The following hardware requirements apply to both Linux and Windows operating systems:

  • Intel Xeon or AMD Opteron CPU with at least 4 cores
  • 16GB of RAM minimum

Linux

Using Dynamic Media on Linux requires the following prerequisites:

  • RedHat Enterprise 7 or CentOS 7 and later with latest fix patches
  • 64-bit Operating System
  • Swapping disabled (recommended)
  • SELinux disabled (See note that follows)
NOTE

If the locale is set such that LC_CTYPE is not equal to en_US.UTF-8, it will prevent dynamic media from working. To see what its value is type “locale” at the command prompt. If it not set to that, then set the LC_CTYPE environment variable to the empty string by typing “export LC_CTYPE=” before running AEM.

NOTE

Disabling SELinux: Image Serving does not work with SELinux turned on. This option is enabled by default. To remedy this issue, edit the /etc/selinux/config file and change the SELinux value from:

SELINUX=enforcing to SELINUX=disabled

NOTE

NUMA Architecture: Systems with processors featuring AMD64 and Intel EM64T are typically configured as non-uniform memory architecture (NUMA) platforms, which means that the kernel constructs multiple memory nodes at boot-time rather than constructing a single memory node.

The multiple node construct can result in memory exhaustion on one or more of the nodes before other nodes become exhausted. When memory exhaustion happens the kernel can decide to kill processes (for example, the Image Server or Platform Server) even though there is available memory.

Therefore, Adobe recommends that if you are running such a system that you turn off NUMA using the numa=off boot option to avoid the kernel killing these processes.

NOTE

Hostname of server must be resolvable: Make sure that the hostname of the server is resolvable to an IP address. If that is not possible, please add the fully qualified hostname and the IP address to /etc/hosts:

<ip address> <fully qualified hostname>

Windows

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2016
  • Swap space equal to at least twice the amount of physical memory (RAM)

To use Dynamic Media on Windows, Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, 2013, and 2015 redistributables for x64 and x86 must be installed.

x64

x86

MacOS

  • 10.9.x and later
  • Only supported for trial and demo purposes

Requirements for AEM Forms PDF Generator

Product

Supported Formats for Conversion to PDF

Acrobat 2017 classic track

XPS, image formats (BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPG, TIF, TIFF, PNG, JPF, JPX, JP2, J2K, J2C, JPC), HTML, HTM, DWG, DXF, and DWF
Microsoft® Project 2016 MPP
Microsoft® Publisher 2016 PUB
Microsoft® Office Visio 2016 VSD
Microsoft® Office 2016 DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PPT, PPTX, RTF, and TXT
Microsoft® Office 2013 DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PPT, PPTX, RTF, and TXT
Corel WordPerfect X7 WP, WPD
OpenOffice 4.1.2 ODT, ODP, ODS, ODG, ODF, SXW, SXI, SXC, SXD, XLS, XLSX, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, image formats (BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPG, TIF, TIFF, PNG, JPF, JPX, JP2, J2K, J2C, JPC), HTML, HTM, RTF, and TXT

OpenOffice 3.4

ODT, ODP, ODS, ODG, ODF, SXW, SXI, SXC, SXD, XLS, XLSX, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, image formats (BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPG, TIF, TIFF, PNG, JPF, JPX, JP2, J2K, J2C, JPC), HTML, HTM, RTF, and TXT
NOTE

PDF Generator supports only English, French, German, and Japanese versions of the supported operating systems and applications.

In addition:

  • PDF Generator requires Acrobat 2017 classic track version 17.011.30078 or later to perform the conversion.
  • AEM Forms supports only 32-bit editions of supported software.
  • The OCR PDF (Searchable PDF), Optimize PDF, and Export PDF features are supported only on Microsoft Windows.
  • The HTML2PDF service is deprecated on AIX.
  • PDF Generator conversions for OpenOffice are supported only on Windows, Linux, and Solaris.
  • The OCR PDF, Optimize PDF, and Export PDF features are supported only on Windows.
  • A version of Acrobat is bundled with AEM Forms to enable PDF Generator functionality. The bundled version should only be accessed programmatically only with AEM Forms, during the term of the AEM Forms license, for use with AEM Forms PDF Generator. For more information, refer to AEM Forms product description as per your deployment (On-Premise or Managed Services)”

Requirements for AEM Assets XMP metadata write-back

XMP write-back is supported and enabled for the following platforms and file formats:

Operating Systems

File Formats

  • JPEG
  • PNG
  • TIFF
  • PDF
  • INDD
  • AI
  • EPS

Requirements for AEM Screens Player

The AEM Screens Player Version 3.3.x supports following operating systems:

  • Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB
  • Google Chome OS 62+
  • Google Android 5.1.1 with updated Android System WebView Version 52+
  • Apple iOS 10.3+
  • Apple macOS 10.12+

Resources on adobe.com

Embedded Charts Responsive Forms Version History Web Content Management Dynamic Forms Content Management System

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