SUGCON 2023
Recap
SUGCON 2023
The Sitecore Usergroup ConferenceSUGCON, short for Sitecore User Group Conference, is an annual conference for Sitecore developers, partners, and customers aimed at exchanging knowledge about using the Sitecore Experience Platform. This year, the event took place in Southern Spain, specifically in sunny Malaga. Of course, we at webits couldn't miss it.
Thursday
The kick-off was a virtual discussion with the Chief Product Officer Dave O'Flanagan and the CEO Steve Tzikakis, in which they provided an outlook on Sitecore's product strategy. The focus in the coming year will be on completing the new Composable DXP approach. This allows for modular use of various Sitecore components in a SaaS approach. Additionally, we can expect Sitecore XP 10.4 this year and numerous other innovations, such as the integration of ChatGPT into Sitecore, the new Sitecore Search, and various options to support the migration from XP to XMCloud (SaaS).
We were also very pleased with the message that, after the last few years, which were more characterized by the acquisition of tools, significantly more investment will be made in the research and development of our own software in the future.
Then it really started and we were looking forward to the exciting presentations. Andy Cohan showed us in his session "Innovations in Deploy" how a deployment on XM Cloud works. He also introduced new features such as the ability to access environment variables in XM Cloud Deployment and provided an overview of planned enhancements such as Deployment Hooks and integration with Azure DevOps based on the roadmap. Currently, only GitHub is supported for the codebase integration. We find it helpful to now be able to easily submit contextual support requests directly through the web interface.
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A highlight from a developer's perspective was the presentation "Hacking Sitecore" by Thomas Stern. He spoke in general about well-known weaknesses and vulnerabilities of software. He described various platforms where one can inform themselves comprehensively on the topic and explained how a security researcher proceeds when searching for vulnerabilities. He explained in detail one of the security vulnerabilities he discovered, which are useful and helpful when it comes to finding and exploiting security flaws and security vulnerability, and demonstrated live how it can be exploited. This allows an attacker, under certain circumstances, to upload and execute arbitrary files on the server, gaining control over the system.
Furthermore, he also showed some other well-known vulnerabilities in older versions of Sitecore. Of course, he also mentioned useful tweaks for Sitecore, such as how to easily close any vulnerabilities. In general, Sitecore is a fairly secure system, and finding security holes or infiltrating the system usually requires a considerable amount of effort. An attacker typically needs administrative access to the Sitecore backend and/or an inactive firewall. This means that if the systems are always kept as up-to-date as possible, all known security patches are installed, as well as the recommended security measures. If you are well prepared, there is little to fear.
Anastasia Plati provided us with insights in her talk about the new Sitecore Search. In an overview she explained how it is integrated into Sitecore's product portfolio and how it interacts with other services. She highlighted the benefits and explained the basic functionality to us using a demo. Sitecore Search is a cloud-based service that is based on Sitecore Discover. It builds and offers an AI-powered search with many useful features.
Sitecore Discover, formerly known as Reflection, was acquired and further developed by Sitecore, forming the foundation for Sitecore Search, through the integration with the Customer Data Platform. Sitecore Search comes with many built-in analysis, tracking, and personalization capabilities. It supports the creation of content and user profiles, provides features for A/B testing, and allows for the creation of indexes for multiple languages or different regions. Additionally, it includes a Rules Engine that enables the reprocessing of search results afterwards. This allows for defining filters and facets, as well as weighting results. As a result, it is possible to find the most relevant content for each user and present it accordingly.
Internally, the search is divided into four layers:
Relevance - First, relevant content is identified from the database. Which attributes of the content best match the search term and how are the respective attribute values weighted.
Ranking - It is sorted based on the KPIs or based on the weighting of the KPIs on the relevant content. For example, which content is accessed more frequently or how up-to-date the found content is.
Personalization - This is where user profiles come into play. The ranking of content is once again tailored based on the individual preferences of the user.
Rules - In the last layer, search results can be further refined by filters, facets, or weighting according to relevance and tailored to the respective user.
A web crawler is used to collect the data, which then transmits it to the index via API. Additionally, Sitecore Discover also offers a REST-API enabling the use by headless services.
After the official part, the cozy part took place. In the early evening, the Bug Busters Sebastian Winter and Rodrigo Peplau provided a musical performance, and afterwards the participants' knowledge was tested during the Community Quiz Night. Some quirky facts about Sitecore, as well as general information about Spain and Malaga, provided good entertainment and elicited laughter from the audience. We ended the evening in a cozy atmosphere at the hotel bar, exchanging thoughts with familiar and new faces from the Sitecore community.
Friday
The next morning, we didn't hesitate to jump into the (still damn cold) Mediterranean shortly after sunrise. After a hearty breakfast, we then went to the next lectures feeling refreshed.
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Ezgi Göçücü and Hande Bodart presented their lecture "Content Hub One Insights" to us. They discussed challenges in creating and managing access rights, and demonstrated how the Azure Messaging Bus can be integrated and used for debugging.
Mike Edwards presented us with many new ways in which data will be presented on the web in the future in his talk "Rendering your data in headless - 101 different ways". Headless CMS are becoming increasingly popular. Our customers appreciate the benefits of separating backend and frontend functions. However, the new architecture also changes the way development is done, and it is not easy to choose the right techniques and tools from the wide range available. Mike considered various rendering patterns such as Single Page Applications, Static site generation, Island Architecture and Progressive Hydration and mentioned various frontend frameworks that provide useful support for implementing these patterns. He delved into the challenges that these patterns and frameworks bring and presented possible solutions to help developers decide which implementation path to choose for different issues. And even though it may pain some seasoned developers, we probably have to admit that the old times of MVC and CSHTML with Headless will soon be over.
With their presentation "Build helpful adventures with Sitecore Personalize," Jacqueline Baxter and David Millan showed us how to help website visitors quickly find the information they are looking for and thus improve the user experience. By using the example of the Sitecore Website, they guided a potential customer directly to a specific product page using short dialogues and simple choices. They utilized actions from the user's current session along with data from Sitecore Personalize.
The advantages and possibilities of personalization were also discussed in the talk "CDP/Personalize & Discover - Better Together" by Cormac Hampson. In his showcase, he demonstrated by using a small webshop how combining data from the Customer Data Platform and Sitecore Discover can deliver personalized content to the user, significantly optimizing the user experience. It was exciting to see how the visitor's so-called Affiliate Score changed in real-time based on their actions.
A detailed insight into Sitecore Connect was provided by Ivan Lieckens with "Integrating in the Cloud: Sitecore Connect". This application for XM Cloud enables the integration of the various modules of Composable DXP. Sitecore Connect is developed in collaboration with Workato. Ivan explained to us the basic functionality and pricing strategy of Sitecore for Connect. He also provided an overview of how developers can extend Sitecore Connect with additional connectors to integrate other external systems that are not included 'out of the box'.
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We were able to experience "Sitecore Components in Action" in Sebastian Winters' presentation. Sitecore Components is a new low-code tool for the XM Cloud and is offered as 'Frontend as a Service', abbreviated as FaaS. New components can be easily created and designed in the backend. Usually, no programming skills or in-depth knowledge of working with Sitecore are required for this. This significantly simplifies the creation of components for editors and makes it extremely efficient. During the creation process, the component can also be integrated with an API, allowing content to be output without further development.
Two well-known faces of the Sitecore Usergroup Germany, Katharina Luger and Christian Hahn, concluded the presentation marathon with their report on Content Hub One. The lightweight headless CMS with its intuitive user interface is suitable for less complex websites.
They both shared their experiences during the relaunch of the SUGDE Website, which was originally built with Wordpress and has now been reimplemented using Content Hub One and NextJs. They focused in particular on the creation and development of components, as well as on teamwork in the project. Their findings included that standardized development environments are very helpful and that effort and difficulties in collaboration increase proportionally with the number of people involved in what should be a simple project.
The crowning conclusion was the closing keynote by Scott Hanselman, who captivated us in a fascinating and compelling way for almost an hour.
Conclusion
The two days in Spain were an extremely enriching experience for us. From the variety of presentations, we were able to gain valuable insights and expand our knowledge. Through direct exchange with other developers, we learned new perspectives and can benefit from their experiences. In addition, we gained insight into Sitecore's future product strategy, allowing us to better align our work with upcoming developments.
The event was a great opportunity to strengthen our networking within the Sitecore community, and we are already looking forward to the meeting next year!
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