Magento Migration: What You Should Know Before Making Your Move
Switching platforms from Magento 1 to 2 is all the rage these days. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon, but few understand the repercussions. Let us take a quick look at some of the more important issues that you should know before you decide to make the move:
Data Migration Issues
This is by far and large the single biggest issue that you will have to face once you decide to migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2. All the data has to be exported and subsequently formatted in order to fit with the latter’s database table structures.
Image Migration Issues
Different images and media files, such as audio files, photos, and video files, have to be moved from the original system to the new setup, and it has to be done manually.
Custom Extension Problems
This is primarily a developer-related issue. If you are using custom extensions in your Magento 1 system, you should keep in mind the fact that these extensions might not be supported on the Magento 2 platform. This means that your developers will have to rewrite all the old modules so that they will be able to work within this all new system.
Theme and Template Issues
In case you are still using custom templates and themes that your designers have developed for Magento 1, you should be aware that they won’t work in Magento 2. This means that a lot of the design work might have to be redone once again and you will have to start from square one.
You Will Need to Test Everything
There are many hitches that might occur during the Magento migration process. It is important to understand that the work should not stop both during and after completion of the migration. For this purpose, you will need to test just about everything from the payment processes all the way to any custom code that you were working with before.
The testing phase can be either long or short, depending entirely on the overall size of the eCommerce site. Moreover, it is also equally important to decide on the personnel responsible for running these tests. It is not easy to force operational staff to conduct formal testing of a new eCommerce platform. These people not professionally trained software testing experts, therefore, their removal from the system even for a short time can adversely affect the day-to-day operations of the company. Here, it is important to understand that the employees assigned to this task will definitely take a very significant amount of time as well as resources to undertake this critically important testing phase.
Conclusion
It is almost always better for the company to hire top professional experts for the job. They will work to ensure that there is minimum disruption in the routine activities of the company. Apart from that, you won’t have to worry about delegating tasks to critically important staff members when they are not trained or qualified for this job.