xDB, Pipelines, Scalability, Config Patching, Modules and Items...oh, my! Have you recently blown into the wonderful world of Sitecore? Or perhaps your knowledge may be a bit rusty? Either way, this is a slidedeck for you. Take a look in to Sitecore's architecture and see the unique insights into the core. This presentation has been given during Sitecore Symposium Las Vegas, Sitecore Symposium Barcelona and Sitecore Trendspot Sydney. Feel free to connect with me on twitter: @pieterbrink123

2. Visit the Emerald City
Understanding the Sitecore Architecture
Pieter Brinkman // Sitecore
Director of Developer and Platform Evangelism

4. Developer Ecosystem
Certified developers : 11.500+
Total community members : 29.000+
30,000
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
1 2 3 4
Series1

5. What is software architecture?
Software architecture is the high level structure of a software
system, the discipline of creating such a high level structure,
and the documentation of this structure.

6. Architecture from a Layered perspective

7. Company website Community website Mobile App
Modules
WFFM, WeBlog, ECM
CMS developer
CMS architecture
Render engine
Rule engine and personalization
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
SPEAK UI SheerUI
Custom implementation
MVC Sitecore Services (JSON)
Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
Mobile SDK
Webforms
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
Reporting API
Connector x WeBlog Module x
Sitecore Instance

8. Company website Community website Mobile App
Modules
WFFM, WeBlog, ECM
CMS developer
CMS architecture
Render engine
Rule engine and personalization
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
SPEAK UI SheerUI
Sitecore implementation
MVC Sitecore Services (JSON)
Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
Mobile SDK
Webforms
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
Reporting API
Connector x WeBlog Module x
Sitecore Instance

9. Company website Community website Mobile App
Modules
WFFM, ECM
CMS developer
CMS architecture
Render engine
Rule engine and personalization
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
SPEAK UI SheerUI
Custom implementation
MVC Sitecore Services (JSON)
Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
Mobile SDK
Webforms
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
Reporting API
Connector x WeBlog Module x
Sitecore Instance

10. CMS architecture
Company website Community website
Custom implementation
Modules
WFFM, WeBlog, ECM
Connector x
Webforms MVC
Render engine
Rule engine and personalization
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
ASP.NET Web Forms ASP.NET MVC
WeBlog
ASP.NET
.NET Framework
Sitecore Instance

11. CMS architecture
Company website Community website
Custom implementation
Modules
WFFM, WeBlog, ECM
Render engine
Layout rendering
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
Connector x
MVC
Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
WeBlog
Sitecore Instance
Webforms

12. CMS architecture
Sitecore Instance
Company website Community website
Custom implementation
Modules
WFFM, WeBlog, ECM
Connector x
Webforms MVC
Rendering engine
Layout rendering
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
Rendering engine
Mobile App
Layout rendering
Device detection
Rule engine
Personalization

13. Mobile App
CMS architecture
Sitecore Instance
Company website
Custom implementation
Modules
WFFM, WeBlog, ECM
Webforms
Render engine
Rule engine and personalization
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
Analytics
Experience Marketing application Layer
Content & Users profiling, Lead Scoring, Multivariate Test Engine
Visitor tracking
Engagement automation
Reporting and Analysis
Reporting API Analytics API

14. Mobile SDK
Mobile App
Company website Community website
Modules
WFFM, WeBlog, ECM
CMS developer
CMS architecture
Render engine
Rule engine and personalization
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
SPEAK UI
SheerUI
Custom implementation
MVC
Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
Core functionalities
Workflow, Versioning, Security, Publishing
Sitecore Services (JSON)
Webforms
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
Reporting API
Connector x
WeBlog
Module x
Application Layer
Sitecore API
Data Layer
Sitecore Instance

15. CMS architecture
Company website Community website
Custom implementation
Modules
WFFM, WeBlog, ECM
Render engine
Rule engine and personalization
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
MVC
CMS Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
Mobile SDK
Caching
Sitecore Services (JSON)
Webforms
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
Module x
Sitecore API
CMS Data Layer
Item Manager
Dataprovider
Content Repositories
Enterprise Datasources
Third Party Applications
Sitecore Instance

16. Company website Community website Mobile App
Modules
WFFM, ECM
CMS developer
CMS architecture
Render engine
Rule engine and personalization
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
SPEAK UI SheerUI
Custom implementation
Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
Mobile SDK
MVC Sitecore Services (JSON)
Webforms
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
Reporting API
Sitecore Instance
WFFM, WeBlog, Social Connected

17. Sitecore Instance
Company website Community website Mobile App
Modules
WFFM, ECM
WFFM, WeBlog, Social Connected
Webforms Reporting API
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
CMS developer
CMS architecture
Render engine
Rule engine and personalization
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
SPEAK UI SheerUI
Custom implementation
Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
Mobile SDK
MVC Sitecore Services (JSON)

18. CMS architecture
Company website Community website Mobile App Backend UI
Modules
WFFM, ECM
Render engine
Rule engine and personalization
Application layer
Security, Publishing, etc.
SPEAK UI (SheerUI)
Custom implementation
Data Layer
DB access, search and 3rd party data access
Mobile SDK
MVC Sitecore Services (JSON)
Webforms
Analytics
Capture and understand visitors
Reporting API
Sitecore Instance
WFFM, WeBlog, Social Connected

19. Yellow brick road
Hidden gems in the path to Emerald City

20. Hidden gems
xDB: Analytics dataflow

21. Writing to the collection database
Session
Shared
Contact
Private
Interaction
Collection
Database
Page
Page
Goal
Contact (if exists)

22. Reporting data flow overview
Collection Database Report Optimized Data
Processing Service
Aggregation task
Reporting Service
Storage

23. Hidden gems
Pipelines and processors

24. Pipelines and Processors
• A pipeline is a series of steps that implement an
operation.
• Each step is a Processor
• The sequence of processors within a pipeline is defined
in web.config
• Each processor contains a unique operation
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3

25. Hidden gems
Config Patching

26. Config Patching
What’s Patched
All *.config files in the
/App_Config/Include/ directory
Config files defined in <sc:include>
elements
How to review
/Sitecore/admin/showconfig.aspx
Sitecore Rocks

27. Hidden gems
Publishing

28. Publishing architecture
Pipeline: Publish
Content Management Content Delivery
Publish
Invoked by: publish action
Publish Queue
Process Publish Queue
3. Update Link Database
Add Items to Publish Queue
Master Database
Web Database
Link Database
Process Queue
1. Disable database Cache
2. Process Publish Queue
Multi Tread Parallel
publishing (optional)
4. Populate Database
Cache (optional)
1. 2.

29. Parallel publishing benchmark
Source: Glen McInnis - http://bit.ly/1qTEf3b

30. Hidden gems
Scalable Architecture
“Languages, libraries and frameworks
don't scale. Architectures do.“
- Cal Henderson, former Chief Architect of Flickr

31. Scalable Focus Areas
Scaling for the Enterprise
Content Analytics Delivery

32. Scalable Focus Areas
Scaling for the Enterprise
Scaling for the Enterprise
Content Analytics Delivery
Content Analytics Delivery

33. Content scaling
Item Buckets
Repositories that store endless
number of items
Scaling for the Enterprise
Content Search
Search based editor experience.
Lucene
Solr
CCoonntteenntt Analytics Delivery

34. Analytics scaling
Services
Isolate responsibilities into
services.
Processing Services
Reporting Service
Storage
Additional storage types that are
optimize for big data
MongoDB
Raw Analytics data storage
SQL
Aggregated report optimized data
storage
Scaling for the Enterprise
Content Analytics Delivery
Additional
xDB Cloud
Collection and reporting as a
service.

35. Delivery scaling
Session State
inProc ASP.NET (default)
MongoDB
SQL server
Server Scaling
Vertical
Raw Analytics data storage
Horizontal
Report optimized data storage
Scaling for the Enterprise
Content Analytics Delivery
Additional
Solr
Search and services
CDN
Distributed content delivery

36. Session state
Server Roles
Content Management Content Delivery
Harvesting Processing
Reporting
Cloud offerings

37. ONE ARCHITECTURE
ONE PLATFORM

38. 38
Contribute
Marketplace
Bit.ly/1BbhpW6
Forums on SDN
Learn
Pipelines
Bit.ly/1yaen8A
Config Patching
Bit.ly/1t3NZZq
Publishing
Bit.ly/1txSVYb
xDB
Bit.ly/YtUuJR
Connect
Twitter
@Pieterbrink123
Blog
Newguid.net
Thank you!
SPEAK UI
Bit.ly/1qafjPY
Bit.ly/1ust849
Stack Overflow
Bit.ly/1rvMJOH