Module vs Component vs Application vs process vs service vs operation in AEM Forms on Adobe LiveCycle

Question

I am new to AEM and while reading the documentation on using workbench I came across all these terms. They all seem similar and I can't really understand the difference. Can anyone please explain the difference among all these?

Answer 1

It's hard to answer this without understanding the context where the specific term is being used however, these are what I believe to be generally accepted definitions:

Module - AEM Forms for JEE has functionality divided into "Modules" (Forms, Output, PDF Generator, Digital Signatures, Document Security, Workflow). You can install only the modules you need which will reduce the overall footprint and the install complexity.

Component - This is typically a "Document Services Component" (DSC) which is a custom Java Component that you can build to run within a Process (see below). This can also be a "Custom Component" which is an AEM concept that is also a custom Java Component, but this time running within an Adaptive Form.

Application - This is typically a container created within AEM Workbench that contains a set of related Processes and resources. You typically export an entire application to move it from one AEM Forms for JEE instance to another.

Process - This is Adobe's name for unit of functionality created in Workbench (within an Application). They can be short-lived (i.e. synchronous - runs immediately and returns a result) or long-lived (i.e. asynchronous - initiated but then may run over a long period of time, include tasks that involve humans, and eventually return a result that must be polled to retrieve). I generally prefer to refer to short-lived processes as "orchestrations" and long-lived processes as "workflows". Orchestrations can be used out-of-the-box but Workflows require the Workflow module to be installed.

Service - Services are groupings of related APIs within a Module. For example the Output Module contains the Output Service, and the Forms Module has the Forms Service. If either of these modules are installed, it also installs the Assembler Service. This is an old document, but it outlines which services get installed for each module.

Operation - This typically refers to an step within a "Process" (a.k.a. orchestration or workflow). When creating a Process, you drag and drop operations onto the canvas, connect them together to create a flow and alter the operations' properties to perform operations on the variables in the Process.

I hope that helps.