Edge Delivery Services Overview

Edge Delivery Services, a game-changer in the realm of website development, is a fascinating, server less technology. Formerly known as Helix and even before that, Franklin, it has revolutionized the way we perceive the creation of next-generation websites, making the process efficient and time-effective.

In the simplest or layman terms, Edge Delivery Services is your one-stop solution to swiftly creating a website, leveraging GitHub, and authoring content using familiar tools like Word documents or Excel spreadsheets.

With the aid of Edge Delivery Services, website development is no longer a daunting task. It seamlessly integrates with GitHub code repositories, facilitating document-based authoring and making the whole process uncomplicated and straightforward.

A significant advantage of Edge Delivery Services is its compatibility with various platforms. Be it editing content in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Excel, Google Sheets, or even a custom authoring environment, it supports them all, including AEM’s Universal Editor.

Its interoperability extends to AEM, Analytics, Target, and other cloud products, making it a versatile tool in the world of web development. Edge Delivery Services doesn’t mandate the use of any frontend framework. However, it can easily work in conjunction with well-known frameworks like React, Angular, Vue, or Svelte. For optimal web performance, it’s recommended to use technology like React Portals and/or WebComponents, allowing the use of a framework inside more application-centric blocks and keeping simple blocks to plain CSS and JS.

The Block Collection, equivalent to Core Components, is a significant aspect of Edge Delivery Services. Detailed information about the Block Collection, which is developed based on the use of blocks on modern websites and serves as an easy-to-style and extensible base for any project, can be found at https://www.aem.live/developer/block-collection.

Search engines, including Google, can index fragments loaded using the fetch API. However, it is considered good practice to disable indexing with noindex metadata for the fragments’ canonical URLs.

One of the most compelling features of Edge Delivery Services is its ability to mix content from various AEM sources and other CMSs. This is particularly beneficial for large, mature sites that have multiple different origins tied together on a CDN tier. This feature allows the use of different AEM projects for different parts or sections of the site, and can even extend to origins powered by a different CMS.

In conclusion, Edge Delivery Services is a powerful tool that is redefining the landscape of web development, turning the previously complex process into a manageable, efficient, and highly effective one.

Edge Delivery Services Overview

The below screenshot talks about the content we can perform document based as well as Universal editor base authoring. It also shows the AEM publishing method using the Universal Editor.

We can use both AEM content management with Universal Editor authoring as well as Document-based Authoring.

AEM Page Editor is replaced with the Universal Editor. Because the Universal Editor can directly work with blocks, the AEM Core Components and converter will no longer be needed.

Edge Delivery Services is decoupled from the content source and can ingest content from different content sources.

Ingesting from multiple content sources offers maximum flexibility to the user. Adobe offers guidance to help you choose which content sources are the best fit for your project.

There are cases where the content source is predefined or otherwise not flexible (e.g. the project can not use Sharepoint or Google Drive). But in many cases, the tool is not preordained and choice of tool is not black and white.

Adobe’s guiding principle is simplicity. Start with Document-based Authoring and add complexity when needed. If a tool change is needed, AEM’s Edge Delivery Services integration covers content migration.

Go through below FAQs link which will help you to clear most of you doubts on Edge Delivery Services:

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-manager-cloud-service/content/edge-delivery/resources/faq

References and useful links:

• Go to documentation https://www.hlx.live/docs/
• Real projects for inspiration https://github.com/hlxsites
• Tutorial to get started https://www.hlx.live/developer/tutorial
• Starter project template https://github.com/adobe/helix-projectboilerplate
• Edge Delivery Learning Portal https://www.aem.live/home