It is not a secret that a good e-commerce platform should be convenient for all users. It should be convenient for buyers for them to want to buy and for sellers so that they could work efficiently. One of the most popular systems in the field of online commerce is Magento. Most large companies that sell their products online use it: Christian Louboutin, Charlotte Tilbury, Ford, etc.
A few years ago, the Magento Commerce official blog announced that by June 2020, support for Magento 1 would be discontinued. Moreover, as there is already very little time left, we have decided to write this article to clarify the main issues regarding this topic once again.
For any software, in particular, for CMS systems, there is such a thing as End of Life (EOL), which means, “end of system life.” This is the moment when support for a product, or some version thereof, discontinues.
In this particular case, the termination of support implies that Magento 1 will no longer have new versions, and the developers will no longer resolve issues related to the quality and safety of the product.
The best thing you can do now is to migrate your trading platforms to Magento 2. Staying on Magento 1 is highly undesirable, as the end of security support has a lot of consequences. For example, it is highly likely that your store and database will be hacked. In addition, this can cost the owner a lot of money, lawsuits and even the loss of business.
You should not be upset, because of the need for migration as Magento 2 has a lot of advantages over its predecessor.
Innovative architecture of Magento 2 makes its high-quality modules more compatible with each other and with the core. It reduces the likelihood of technical failures in an online store when installing a new module. With Magento 2, the administrator has more options for creating and updating the store. Thanks to the new modules, the risk crashing of the existing components is reduced.
Magento 2 supports plugins that allow you not to overlap the entire class, but to perform micro-actions in stages before, after and during the execution of any core method. This is a giant step forward. There are no other systems on the market that have such a technology.
Magento 2 is developed openly and uses GitHub as a public development platform where you can easily report a bug. Customer support responds quickly and efficiently.
Other important advantages in favor of Magento 2 are wider functionality, high performance, support of more modern technologies (such as progressive web apps), and a more convenient admin panel interface.
Now let us look at some interesting numbers:
Magento 1 and Magento 2 platforms are not compatible. This means that if you have Magento version 1.x, its modules and the current theme cannot be used on Magento 2.
However, the situation is better with the data, since there is an official utility that simplifies the process of transferring them. However, this utility allows you to transfer only the data that was originally in Magento, without data from third-party modules.
It turns out that the process of switching to Magento 2 is more like a creation of a new online store using the available data, rather than a usual upgrade to the latest version.
For successful migration to a new platform, it is extremely important to consider the timing. For small websites, this factor is not as critical as for big projects, where the migration process can take much longer.
The longest migration step is the process of backing up the database. Then it is necessary to begin the balancing phase, which requires an autonomous phase.
It is important to impose restrictions on operations that should not be performed during the migration period. For example, you can place orders on the site, while prohibiting any actions on order processing by administrators.
The main step is to export and import content into the Magento 2 database. The current Magento 2 structure allows direct transferring of data from one database to another.
Probably we should stop here and analyze the process itself thoroughly.
At the first stage, it is recommended to prepare the documentation necessary for migration planning and site development based on Magento 2, namely:
If the client wants his store to continue to operate normally during the migration, each stage of migration and the development of all related projects should be performed in a separate environment (on a separate server). To do this, you need to prepare a test development environment and install the standard Magento 2 (Community or Enterprise), as well, as configure the version control system (GIT / SVN) so that everything is ready to launch the project.
Next, we follow the migration plan drawn up earlier:
Now you need to migrate the data from your Magento 1.x database to Magento 2 database.
As mentioned earlier, there is a utility that simplifies the process of data migration as much as possible. You can explore it here.
The utility can work in one of these three modes:
It is important to remember that data from third-party modules will not be transferred. An alternative solution to the problem could be to develop the necessary modules from the get-go.
As the themes for Magento 1.x and Magento 2.x platforms are incompatible, it is impossible to copy the current theme for Magento 1.x and use it for Magento 2. As a solution, we recommended to adapting the Luma theme for Magento 2 to launch a project faster.
Why should we choose this theme?
Of course, you can use any other theme you like or create your own. We simply offer the most effective and least time-consuming solution.
After the final testing of a ready-made solution, you should be ready to publish the project.
Before publishing, it is recommended to buy a Magento 2 compatible hosting or set up your own dedicated server in accordance with the new system requirements for Magento 2. After that, you can proceed with additional synchronization of the Magento 2 database. This is necessary to transfer the latest data from a Magento 1-based website to your new Magento 2-based site (new users, orders, etc.).
The last stage of the project migration is the release of the online store at the convenient time for clients under the control of software developers and testing specialists.
If you do everything correctly and in accordance with the plan, in the end you will get a new smoothly running Magento 2 based store, launched within the most reasonable time span.
Do you want to learn more about Magento and migration processes? Read our articles:
Have a nice, safe migration!
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