HST-2 Multi-lingual, multi-site, multi-domain and multi-channel setup

Introduction

Out of the box, HST provides support for a multi-language, multi-site, multi-domain and multi-channel setup. Everything is supported through HST configuration. Things like cross-domain, cross-site, cross-language and cross-channel linking are also supported out-of-the-box. Links between documents belonging to different sites or languages are resolved automatically, and can even be links to a different domain!

HST scales easily to many sites, channels and translations: Some Bloomreach Experience Manager projects run 500 sites (including translations), and local tests go up to 1500 sites without performance degradation.

Channels Perspective

The Channel Manager can be used to create new channels from within the CMS. A 'channel' in the Channels Perspective can be a subsite, a translated site, a mobile site and more. Behind the scenes, the Channel Manager creates and modifies HST configuration.

The various child pages describe how to manually achieve what the Channel Manager does automatically. This information is relevant when developing a blueprint. A blueprint contains various HST configuration parts that are copied when a new channel is created. As a developer, you will most likely first create and test these configuration parts manually before making them part of a blueprint.

Terminology

• Multi-language: To have one site in multiple languages.

• Multi-site: To have multiple sites, possibly in multiple languages

• Multi-domain: To have multiple domains (different hosts) configured in the HST configuration

• Multi-channel: To have multiple views (website, mobile, rest, etc) on the same content

Depending on the needs, a site in a different language, a channel or a sub-site can require some custom HST configuration. For example, a French site would have its own unique sitemap (French URLs) and site menu, but can share the configuration for components and templates with the English version.