A roadmap to Magento 2 migration

In November 2015, Magento released the next generation of its open source digital commerce platform: Magento 2. The new platform leverages an open, flexible architecture to deliver the adaptability and bandwidth needed to create engaging, seamless and personalized customer experiences across almost any device.

As with any disruptive innovation, Magento 2.x will eventually phase out Magento 1.x. Magento announced that support for version 1 of Magento Commerce will cease in the upcoming few years, causing many merchants to look into migrating to Magento 2.x.

As an Enterprise Solution Partner within the Magento Partner ecosystem, Capgemini is able to leverage nearly a decade of experience with Magento systems to inform and assist merchants through this business-critical decision.

The Power of Magento 2

Before getting into the nuts and bolts of a Magento 2 migration, organizations should first understand what makes Magento 2 so powerful and transformative.

First, the underlying technology: a modernized technology stack powers Magento 2. This technology accelerates time-to-market for upgrades, integrations, and customizations while ensuring a higher quality product.

eCommerce storefronts now incorporate mobile responsive templates, simplifying design across devices. Modified business-user Admin Panel features enhance intuitiveness and improve the overall user experience.

CLOUD BASED

Magento Commerce Cloud enables users to leverage the benefits of the Magento 2 platform without the headache of managing their hosting and infrastructure.

The platform utilizes industry leaders, such as AWS, to handle server, security, database, and network management. It also includes CDN, performance monitoring, business intelligence, and release development tools that enable merchants to provide shoppers with the highest quality shopping experience possible.

According to Magento, the Cloud “enables consistent rapid deployment using industry leading cloud technologies combined with the full flexibility of Magento Commerce.”

ENHANCED SEARCH AND PRODUCTIVITY

In Magento 2.1, there are many exciting new additions to the platform.  New native stage and preview capabilities, replacing SOLR with Elasticsearch for site search, enhanced payment-method support, and optimized Enhanced Management Tools all create a more intuitive experience.

B2B COMMERCE CAPABILITIES

B2B eCommerce presents organizations with a massive opportunity to take advantage of modern buyer demands. Magento 2.2 and its B2B Suite address the complexities and needs inherent to B2B organizations.

This module supports custom shared catalogs and customer pricing, rapid reorder capabilities, company specific storefront user permissions, and new workflows for quote management and price negotiations.

Additionally, Magento 2.2 enables further integrations to improve the developer experience (i.e. Docker) and delivers significant caching, checkout, image processing, and re-indexing improvements, making stores run faster than ever.

THE LATEST – MAGENTO 2.3

Magento 2.3 represents a massive leap forward for the Magento platform.

It offers business-friendly page building capabilities thanks to its PageBuilder* functionality. This will give Magento users a powerful and intuitive tool to control just about every aspect of their digital experience.

*At the moment, PageBuilder is only available to select early adopter partners such as Capgemini.

Magento 2.3 will also include a suite of tools to help users develop Progressive Web Applications, support headless shopping cart implementations, and establish and optimize 3rd Party Sales channels.

Magento 2 Migration

Migrating from Magento 1.x to 2.x has been top-of-mind for Magento users since 2.0’s announcement back in 2015. In June 2020, Magento Commerce will cease supporting its 1.x versions, meaning Magento 1 merchants need to consider migrating rather soon.

It’s important to understand that Magento 2.x is a significant enhancement to the Magento platform. It is built on modern technology vastly different from

Magento 1.x., and this is why moving from 1.x to 2.x will require a significant amount of work, time, and money. It is a migration, not a simple upgrade.

Beyond migrating your core storefront data, flexibility drivers such as the Marketplace will be substantially affected by the migration to Magento 2.

EXTENSIONS AND MARKETPLACE

Extensions originally designed for Magento 1.x are not directly supported by Magento 2, although many developers have created Magento 2 analogues to popular Magento 1.x extensions.

Currently, there are more than 1,750 Magento 2 extensions available, and more arrive every day. The Magento 2.x extension ecosystem covers more than 80% of the most popular Magento 1.x extensions.

Still, thousands of Magento 1.x extensions are currently used by hundreds of thousands of merchants. Even with this significant extension overlap, Magento 2 migration decisions must take every extension and integration into account.

DATA AND CODE

For Magento 1.x stores, the length of the Magento 2 migration process varies greatly. Simple storefronts can be changed over in as little as seven weeks, while large, complex stores may take four or five months to migrate.

The length of time needed for a successful migration comes down to site complexity and merchant requirements. Specifications around performance, design, integrations, and extensions significantly affect migration completion time. With the average migration taking 4.6 months, merchants looking to migrate to Magento 2 need to start planning today.

Magento and various developers supply data migration tools, such as the Magento 2 Data Migration Tool and the Code Migration Toolkit, to help guide users through the process. These tools simplify the migration process and allow merchants to utilize the power of Magento 2 to optimize their digital business.

THEMES AND CUSTOMIZATIONS

Merchants spend a lot of time and money to create innovative, engaging, and immersive experiences on the Magento platform. Magento 2 takes these abilities to a new level, but in doing so, also uses new approaches and technologies, making migration a potentially tricky task.

To take advantage of these advances, merchants will need to enlist developer support to re-create and optimize their existing templates and experiences.  Naturally, the level of complexity required here is directly proportional to the level of customization and complexity in the existing Magento 1 experience.

Keys to Migration Success

As the backbone for more than 3,700 online retailers, Magento 2 has created a host of decisions and opportunities for merchants. Considering the resources involved in a successful Magento 2 migration, merchants should start defining a migration strategy and plans as soon as possible.

Trusted by hundreds of leading retailers and brands to realize their commerce vision, Capgemini is optimally positioned to work with Magento 1.x users during this time of migration.

An Enterprise Solution Partner within the Magento Partner ecosystem, Capgemini has extensive experience migrating current Magento 1.x users to the Magento 2 platform. At launch, Capgemini became one of the first partners selected by Magento to receive training on the Magento 2 platform, and became one of the first in the world to be certified as a Trained Solution Partner.

Capgemini draws upon nearly a decade-long relationship with Magento to provide technical expertise spanning application development, systems integration, architecture planning, data conversion, and platform training.

With dedicated Magento hosting and support infrastructure in Rockford and Chicago, IL, Capgemini partners with Magento clients through the entire implementation, support, and hosting process. This combination of technical expertise and unwavering support has led to hundreds of successful implementations as well as Magento Innovation and Partner Excellence Awards.

Migrating to Magento 2 is much more than a simple software upgrade, and Capgemini is now partnering with Magento merchants to deliver Migration Assessment services and optimize this migration process.

The Capgemini Migration Assessment helps merchants work towards their business goals, evaluate their current technology, and clarify a strategic path forward for a seamless migration to Magento 2.x. This involves determining which Magento 1 customizations can be replaced by native Magento 2 functionality, as well as mapping Magento 1 extensions into Magento 2.

Our commitment to client success permeates everything we do. Across strategy, creative, technology and beyond, we stand by every project, every time. We know it is your brand, your customers and your business on the line. You can count on Capgemini to go the extra mile to meet your near-term and long-term objectives throughout the Magento migration process.