Legacy Products
Legacy products are the compatibility path for existing Packt catalogue items that pre-date the Content Lake.
What is a Legacy Product?
A legacy product has a pre-existing distributable asset — a video file, an ePub, a PDF. The asset already exists and is uploaded to the Product Management service. The service manages the product metadata (title, ISBNs, pricing, authors) and the lifecycle, but the content itself is opaque.
Comparison with Content Lake-backed Products
| Aspect | Legacy | Content Lake-backed |
|---|---|---|
| Asset origin | Pre-existing file | Assembled from CL documents |
| Stored assets | Full distributable | Cover images only |
| ToC / Index | Part of uploaded asset | Generated dynamically |
| Format generation | N/A (asset is final) | On-the-fly, streamed |
| Content updates | Re-upload asset | Automatic or pinned |
| Knowledge graph | Not available | Full entity context |
Supported Types
| Type | Formats |
|---|---|
| Book | PDF, ePub |
| Video Course | MP4 |
| Audiobook | M4B |
Book products can be either legacy or Content Lake-backed. Video Course and Audiobook products are legacy-only — their content cannot currently be assembled from Content Lake documents.
Lifecycle
Legacy products follow the same lifecycle as Content Lake-backed products: DRAFT, REVIEW, APPROVED, PUBLISHED, RETIRED, and WITHDRAWN.
Migration Path
Over time, legacy products can be migrated to Content Lake-backed products by ingesting their content into the Content Lake and creating a new Content Lake-backed product that references the ingested documents. The legacy product can then be retired.