This article is the first of a small series analyzing Edge Delivery Services and the integration with Universal Editor and Xwalk.
What is Edge Delivery Services?
Adobe Edge Delivery Services (EDS) also known as Adobe Franklin (or AEM Franklin) is a cloud-based service integrated into Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). Decoupled from the content source, EDS allows users to ingest content from different sources, providing maximum flexibility. It ensures optimal website performance while accelerating content delivery and user interaction velocity.
What does it do?
EDS operates as a serverless infrastructure, converting content from documents and spreadsheets into HTML fragments distributed across edge nodes in a content delivery network. The architecture is built around the concept of blocks, with AEM offering a library of predefined blocks that can be extended to meet project-specific needs. This block-based environment empowers non-code content creators, enabling them to manage and publish content without extensive programming knowledge. Here you can find a step-by-step guide to get started with EDS.
Which are the benefits?
New Edge Services from AEM bring several benefits on the table:
- Content Source Flexibility: EDS is decoupled from the content source, allowing users to ingest content from various sources, including Sharepoint and Google Docs, providing maximum flexibility.
- Serverless Infrastructure: EDS is designed as a serverless infrastructure, eliminating the need for backend programming capabilities. This enhances scalability and ease of use.
- Supported Content Delivery Networks: EDS currently supports popular content delivery networks such as Cloudflare, Akamai, Cloudfront, and Fastly, offering users a range of options for efficient content delivery.
- HTML Fragment Distribution: Content from documents and spreadsheets is converted into HTML fragments, which are then distributed to the edge nodes of a content delivery network, ensuring optimal website and SEO performance.
- Block-Based Architecture: EDS operates around the concept of blocks, and AEM provides a library of predefined blocks that can be extended to meet specific project requirements. The code is maintained on GitHub for customization and scalability.
- Ease of Use for Non-Code Content Creators: The block-based environment of EDS empowers non-code content creators, enabling them to manage and publish content without extensive programming knowledge.
- Continuous Improvement: EDS is a project under continuous improvement, suggesting ongoing enhancements and updates to meet evolving user needs and addressing any limitations in the current version, for example, the dropin for Adobe Commerce Storefront is currently under development.
- Guidance for Content Source Selection: Adobe provides guidance for users in selecting the most appropriate content sources for their specific projects, ensuring optimal performance and compatibility.
- GitHub Repository: Adobe maintains a GitHub repository (https://github.com/adobe/aem-boilerplate) containing a boilerplate with basic styles and components, facilitating developers in utilizing and customizing Edge Delivery Services in AEM for their projects.
And the limits?
As of right now, AEM Edge Delivery Services simplicity is both its biggest strength and weakness. While creating content within the existing formatting and framework of the provided AEM template project is extremely straightforward, anything outside of that framework presents challenges. Basic web tools, such as tables and dynamic feeds, do not come out-of-box with EDS. While it’s easy to see how other EDS sites approach implementing those tools, most custom blocks are not typically plug-and-play. This means that tools outside the scope of what’s provided/highlighted by AEM often need to be built from scratch.
There’re also media quality concerns, because document-based content may encounter limitations in maintaining media quality, compared to more advanced authoring methods.
There isn’t a large community surrounding EDS as there is surrounding AEM, or other web development products, making it difficult to find information regarding corner cases.
Currently, EDS is suitable for simpler websites.
Where to use?
Determining the optimal projects for AEM EDS involves considering factors like website complexity and backend features. AEM EDS is best suited for projects that prioritize rapid content delivery, user interaction, SEO optimization, and prefer a serverless, scalable, and cost-efficient solution.
In order to determine the effort of implementing EDS for a project, it is important to consider the specific goals and requirements of the client. Every project is unique and therefore, the effort will vary accordingly.
