Go-Live Checklist Go-Live-Checklist

Run an end-to-end production pipeline with functional and UI testing to ensure an always current AEM product experience. See the following resources.

• AEM Version Updates
• Custom Functional Testing
• UI Testing

If you are migrating from AEM 6.5, you should migrate content to production and make sure that a relevant subset is available on staging for testing.

• DevOps best practices for AEM imply that code moves up from development to the production environment while content moves down from production environments.

Schedule a code and content freeze period.

• Also see the section Code and Content Freeze Timelines for the Migration

Perform the final content top-up.

Validate Dispatcher configurations.

• Use a local Dispatcher validator that facilitates configuring, validating, and simulating the Dispatcher locally

  • Set up the local Dispatcher tools.

• Review the virtual host configuration carefully.

  • The easiest (and default) solution is to include ServerAlias * in your virtual host file in the /dispatcher/src/conf.d/available_vhostsfolder. Doing so permits the host aliases used by product functional tests, Dispatcher cache invalidation, and clones to function.

  • However, if ServerAlias * is not acceptable, at a minimum the following ServerAlias entries must be allowed in addition to your custom domains:

    • localhost
    • *.local
    • publish*.adobeaemcloud.net
    • publish*.adobeaemcloud.com

Configure CDN, SSL and DNS.

• If you are using your own CDN, enter a support ticket to configure appropriate routing.

  • See the section Customer CDN points to AEM Managed CDN in the CDN documentation for details.
  • Configure SSL and DNS according to the documentation of your CDN vendor.

• If you are not using an additional CDN, manage SSL and DNS as per the following documentation:

  • Managing SSL Certificates

    • Introduction to SSL certificates
    • Manage SSL certificates

  • Managing Custom Domain Names (DNS)

    • Ensure that the DNS cutover does not introduce unexpected problems. Create a test subdomain to connect your production instance to before you go-live and do a round of UAT testing. So, if your domain is example.com, you can create a subdomain test.example.com and apply it to production. During UAT testing of the domain, look for things such as proper link redirection, caching, and Dispatcher configurations.
    • Introduction to custom domain names
    • Add a custom domain name
    • Manage a custom domain name

• Remember to validate the TTL set for your DNS record.

  • The TTL is the amount of time a DNS record stays in a cache before asking the server for an update.
  • If you have a very high TTL, updates to your DNS record take longer to propagate.

Run performance and security tests that meet your business requirements and objectives.

• Perform tests in a stage environment. It has the same sizing as production.
• Development environments do not have the same sizing as stage and production.

Cut over and make sure that the actual go-live is performed without any new deployment or content update.

Create Admin Console User Notification Profiles. See Notification Profiles

Consider configuring Traffic Filter Rules to control what traffic should not be allowed on your website.

• Rate limit Traffic Filter Rules can be an effective tool against DDoS attacks. A special category of Traffic Filter Rules, called WAF (Web Application Firewall) rules, require a separate license.
• See documentation for some suggested starter rules.