---
title: "Core Concepts"
date: "2025-09-02T13:44:05+00:00"
summary: "Discover Multi-Experience Operations: Streamline digital asset management with codebases, sites, environments, and instances for efficient web development."
image:
type: "page"
url: "/acquia-cloud-platform/add-ons/multi-experience-operations/core-concepts"
id: "31ee7a48-068a-48fd-90c1-d18d3b3b9b17"
---

Multi-Experience Operations organizes your digital assets in the following hierarchy:

*   **Codebase** - The root container that holds your shared code
*   **Sites** - Logical representations of individual websites
*   **Environments** - Runtime configurations shared across sites
*   **Site Instances** - Concrete deployments of sites in specific environments

Component

Description

Key characteristics

Codebase

Indicates a Git repository with the shared code that powers multiple websites and is the foundation of your Multi-Experience Operations setup.

*   **Single source of truth:** All sites that use the codebase share the same code
*   **Version control:** Connected to your Git repository for code management
*   **Scalable:** Can support dozens or hundreds of sites
*   **Centralized updates:** Code changes propagate to all associated sites

Site

Is an individual website that you operate on Cloud Platform and indicates a logical concept that encompasses all stages of development, testing, and production.

*   **Logical representation:** Represents your website concept, not a specific deployment
*   **Lifecycle management:** Covers development, testing, and production phases
*   **Independent configuration:** Each site can have unique settings and domains
*   **Shared codebase:** Uses code from the parent codebase

Environment

Defines the runtime configuration where sites operate, are owned by the codebase, and can host multiple sites simultaneously.

Environment types:

#### Production environments

*   Host live websites accessible to end users
*   Optimized for performance and reliability
*   Support custom domains and SSL certificates
*   Include monitoring and alerting capabilities

#### Non-production environments

*   Used for development, testing, and staging
*   Support multiple development teams and workflows
*   Can be created and deleted as needed
*   Include debugging and development tools

Site instances

Is the concrete deployment of a site in a specific environment and represents the actual running website with its database, files, and domain configuration.

*   **Concrete deployment:** Actual running instance of your site
*   **Environment-specific:** Inherits configuration from its environment
*   **Independent resources:** Has its own database and file system
*   **Domain mapping:** Can have custom domains and SSL certificates

Multi-Experience Operations vs traditional hosting solutions
------------------------------------------------------------

Feature

Multi-Experience Operations

Traditional Hosting

**Code Management**

Single shared codebase

Separate repository per site

**Deployments**

Bulk deployments across sites

Individual site deployments

**Consistency**

Automatic consistency

Manual synchronization

**Scaling**

Centralized management

Linear complexity increase

Multi-Experience Operations vs Site Factory
-------------------------------------------

Multi-Experience Operations

Site Factory

Supports independent code deployment at environment level.

Does not support independent code deployment for each site.

Supports isolation for sensitive sites.

Note

The site isolation feature is available as a paid add-on to your base Multi-Experience Operations entitlement. For more information, visit [Base Entitlement](/service-offerings/multi-experience-operations-product-guide "Multi-Experience Operations Product Guide").

Does not support resource isolation for sites.

Supports multiple production environments and therefore, sites grouped on an environment can run on different versions of code.

Cannot run different sites on different versions of code.

Architecture and platform limits
--------------------------------

To work with MEO, an understanding of the architectural hierarchy from code base to environment to site instances is mandatory.

*   ****Code Deployment Constraints****: Code deployment must occur at the environment level to update every site instance simultaneously. The platform does not support code deployment to a single isolated site. Furthermore, all sites on a single environment share the same pods rather than run in isolation.
    
*   ****Infrastructure and Platform Limits****: Because MEO builds upon Cloud Next infrastructure, application designs must respect Cloud Next platform constraints. Application configurations must adhere to Cloud Next limits for MySQL versions and cron job executions because Cloud Classic limitations no longer apply.