Documentation AEM as a Cloud Service User Guide

Manage Environments

Last update: January 31, 2025

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Learn about the types of environments that you can create and how to create them for your Cloud Manager project.

Environment types

A user with the requisite permissions can create the following environment types (within the bounds of what is available to the specific tenant).

Environment type	Description
Production + Stage	The production and staging environments are available as a pair and are used for production and testing purposes, respectively. Conduct performance and security tests on stage environment. It has the same sizing as production.
Development	A development environment can be created for development and testing purposes and can be associated with non-production pipelines only. Development environments do not have the same sizing as stage and production, and should not be used to conduct performance and security tests.
Rapid Development	A Rapid Development Environment (RDE) lets developers quickly deploy and review changes. This ability reduces the time needed to test features that have already been validated in a local development environment. See the rapid development environment documentation for details about how to use an RDE.

The capabilities of individual environments depend on the solutions that were enabled in the program of the environment.

NOTE

Production and staging environments are only created as a pair. You cannot create a production-only or a staging-only environment.

Add an environment

To add or edit an environment, a user must be a member of the Business Owner role.

To add an environment:

Log into Cloud Manager at my.cloudmanager.adobe.com and select the appropriate organization.
On the My Programs console, click the program for which you want to add an environment.
Do one of the following:

If the Add Environment option is dimmed (disabled), it may be due to a lack of permissions or dependent on the licensed resources.
- On the My Programs console, on the Environments card, click Add Environment.
- On the left side panel, click Environments, then on the Environments page, near the upper-right corner, click Add Environment.
In the Add environment dialog box, do the following:
- Select an environment type. The number of available/used environments is displayed in parentheses behind the environment type name.
- Provide an environment Name. The environment name cannot be changed after the environment is created.
- Provide an optional Description for the environment.
- If you are adding a Production + Stage environment, you must provide an environment name and description for both your production and staging environments.
- Select a Primary region from the drop-down. The primary region cannot be changed after creation. Also, depending on your available entitlements, you may be able to configure multiple regions.
Click Save.

The Overview page now displays your new environment in the Environments card. You can now set up pipelines for your new environment.

Multiple publish regions

A user with the Business Owner role can configure production and staging environments to include up to three additional publish regions in addition to the primary region. Additional publish regions can improve availability. See the Additional Publish Regions documentation for more details.

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You can use the Cloud Manager API to query a current list of available regions.

Add multiple publish regions to a new environment

When you add an environment, you can elect to configure additional regions in addition to the primary region.

Select the Primary region.
- The primary region cannot be changed after environment creation.
Select the option Add additional publish regions and a new Additional publish regions option drop-down appears.
In the Additional publish regions drop-down, select an extra region.
The region selected is added below the drop-down to indicate its selection.
- Select the X next to the selected region so you can de-select it.
Select another region from the Additional publish regions drop-down to add another region.
Select Save when you are ready to create your environment.

Selecting multiple regions

The selected regions apply to both production and staging environments.

If you do not specify any additional regions, you can do so later after the environments are created.

If you want to provision advanced networking for the program, it is recommended that this provisioning is done before adding additional publish regions to the environments by using the Cloud Manager API. Otherwise, the additional publish regions’ traffic goes through the primary region’s proxy.

Edit multiple publish regions

If you did not specify any additional regions initially, you can do so after the environments are created if you have the necessary entitlements.

You can also remove additional publish regions. However, you can only add or only remove regions in one transaction. If you must add one region and remove one region, first add, save your change, and then remove (or conversely).

From the Program Overview console of your program, click for your production environment and select Edit from the menu.
In the Edit Production Environment dialog, make the necessary changes to the additional publish regions.
- Use the Additional publish regions drop-down to select additional regions.
- Click the X next to selected additional publish regions to de-select them.
Select Save to save the changes.

Changes made to the production environment apply to both production and staging environments. Changes to multiple publish regions can only be edited in the production environment.

If you want to provision advanced networking for the program, it is recommended that this provisioning is done before adding additional publish regions to the environments. Otherwise, the additional publish regions’ traffic goes through the primary region’s proxy.

Access Environment details

To access Environment details, do one of the following:
- From the Overview page, in the left side menu, click Environments.
- From the Environments card, click Show All.
The Environments page opens and lists all environments for the program.
On the Environments page, do one of the following:
- Click an environment in the list to reveal its details.
- Click of the environment that you want, then click View Details.

NOTE

The Environments card only lists three environments. Click Show All in the card to see all environments of the program.

Access the preview service

Cloud Manager provides a preview service (delivered as an extra publish service) to each AEM as a Cloud Service environment.

Using the service you can preview a website’s final experience before it reaches the actual publish environment and is available publicly.

On creation, the preview service has a default IP allowlist applied to it, labeled Preview Default [<envId>], which blocks all traffic to the preview service. Unapply the default IP allowlist from the preview service so you can enable access.

Preview service and its allow list

A user with the requisite permissions must complete the following steps before sharing the preview service URL to ensure access to it.

Create an appropriate IP Allow List, apply it to the preview service, and immediately unapply the Preview Default [<envId>] allowlist.

See Apply and unapply IP Allow Lists for more details.
Use the IP Allow List update workflow to remove the default IP and add the necessary IPs. See Manage IP Allow Lists to learn more.

After access to the preview service is unlocked, the lock icon in front of the preview service name is no longer displayed.

Once activated, you can publish content to the preview service by using the Manage Publication user interface inside AEM. See Preview content for more details.

NOTE

Your environment must be on AEM version 2021.05.5368.20210529T101701Z or newer to use the preview service. Make sure that an update pipeline has successfully run on your environment so you can use the preview service.

Status of additional publish regions

If you have activated additional publish regions, you can check the status of these regions from the Environments card.

On the Overview page, locate the Environments card.
On the Environments card, the Status column reflects if there are any issues with the configured additional publish regions. Click the Info icon for details of the regions.

Alternatively you can access the same information from the Environments tab.

On the Overview page, click Environments.
On the Environments page, select the environment you want to query in the left side menu.
After an environment is selected:
- The Environment Information table shows which regions are configured for the selected environment.
- The Status column of the Environment Segments table reflects if there are any issues with the configured additional publish regions. Hover over the status for details of any issue.

If there are any issues reported with additional publish regions, be patient. Cloud Manager continuously tries to recover the region and it may become available at any time. If the problem persists after several hours, you can remove the additional publish region and re-add it (either the same region or another region) to trigger a complete deployment.

How long you wait for the system to recover on its own before taking additional action depends on the impact the failure of that region has to your systems.

Regardless, traffic is always routed to the closest region that is online. If you continue to see issues, contact Adobe Customer Care.

Update environments

As a cloud-native service, Adobe automatically manages updates for your development, staging, and production environments within production programs.

However, updates to environments in sandbox programs are managed within the programs. When such an environment is not running the latest publicly available AEM version, the status on the Environments card on the Overview screen of the program shows Update Available.

Environment update status

Updates and pipelines

Pipelines are the only way to deploy code to the environments of AEM as a Cloud Service. For this reason, each pipeline is associated with a particular AEM version.

When Cloud Manager detects a newer version of AEM than the one last deployed with the pipeline, it displays the Update Available status for the environment.

The process of updating is therefore a two-step process:

Updating the pipeline with the latest AEM version
Running the pipeline to deploy the new version of AEM to an environment

Update your environments

NOTE

As of 2024, development instances and some sandbox programs are already automatically updated so there is no need to manage updates for them manually. As a result of this transition, the option to Update environment manually for development instances might not be available to some of your programs.

The Update option is available on the Environments card for specific development and sandbox environments. Click next to the environment to access Update.

Update option from Environments card

This option is also available by clicking the Environments tab of the program and then clicking of the environment.

Update option from Environments tab

A user with the Deployment Manager or Business Owner role can use this option to update the pipeline associated with this environment to the latest AEM version.

Once the pipeline version is updated to the latest publicly available AEM version, the user is prompted to run the associated pipeline to deploy the latest version to the environment.

Example of the prompt to run the pipeline to update the environment

The Update option’s behavior varies depending on the configuration and current state of the program.

State

The Update option…

The pipeline has already been updated

prompts the user to execute the pipeline.

The pipeline is already being updated

informs the user that an update is already running.

The pipeline does not exist

prompts the user to create one.

Delete development environments

A user with the Deployment Manager or Business Owner role is able to delete a development environment.

From the Overview screen of the program on the Environments card, click of the development environment you want to delete.

The Delete option

The Delete option is also available from the Environments tab of the Overview window of the program. Click of the environment and select Delete.

The delete option from the Environments tab

NOTE

Production and staging environments created in a production program cannot be deleted.
Production and staging environments in a sandbox program can be deleted.

Manage access

Select Manage Access from the ellipsis menu of the environment on the Environments card. You can navigate to the author instance directly and manage access for your environment.

Manage access option

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See AEM as a Cloud Service Team and Product Profiles to learn how AEM as a Cloud Service team and product profiles can grant and limit access to your licensed Adobe solutions.

Access the Developer console

From the Environment card, click , then click Developer Console.

A new tab is opened in your browser with the logon page to the Developer Console.

Login to the Developer Console

Only a user with the Developer role has access to the Developer Console. However, for sandbox programs, any user with access to the sandbox program has access to the Developer Console.

See Hibernating and De-hibernating Sandbox Environments for more details.

This option is also available from the Environment tab of the Overview window when clicking of an individual environment.

Do one of the following:
- From the Environment card, click , then click Local Login.
- From the left side panel, click Environments. On the Environments page, click , then click Local Login.

Manage custom domain names

Custom domain names are supported in Cloud Manager for Sites programs for both publish and preview services.

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For more information, see Introduction to custom domain names.

Manage IP Allow Lists

An IP Allow List is supported in Cloud Manager for author, publish, and preview services for Sites programs.

To manage IP Allow Lists, navigate to the Environments page of the Overview page of your program. Click an individual environment so you can manage its details.

Apply an IP Allow List

Applying an IP Allow List links all defined IP ranges to an author or publish service in the environment.

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For more information, see Introduction to IP Allow Lists.

recommendation-more-help

Manage Environments

Environment types

Add an environment

Multiple publish regions

Add multiple publish regions to a new environment

Edit multiple publish regions

Access Environment details

Access the preview service

Status of additional publish regions

Update environments

Updates and pipelines

Update your environments

Delete development environments

Manage access

Access the Developer console

Login locally

Manage custom domain names

Manage IP Allow Lists

Apply an IP Allow List