Despite being the later in the eCommerce world, Magento 2 is taking customers from other eCommerce platforms such as Shopify or WooCommerce. Want to know why? Read our comparison between Magento and other platforms. You will impress with the outstanding benefits from Magento 2:
Magento 2, the transformed version of the Magento Ecommerce Platform, comes with a brand new architecture, coding structure, and database design. The support for Magento 1 will end soon. Already the best minds in the ecommerce development industry are focused on making Magento 2 a successful ecommerce platform. In this context, the most important question is how to conduct Magento migration.
Steps for migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2:
- Make a full backup of your Magento 1 store including all files, folders, and the database.
- Create a clone of your Magento 1 store. Do not use the live store for Magento migration process.
- Analyze your store. Keep what you think is necessary and delete the rest.
- Check whether your current theme(s), extensions and custom code are compatible with the Magento 2.
- Migrate the data from the cloned database of your Magento 1 store.
- Remove outdated and useless data from the database. This includes logs, recently viewed products, compared products, etc.
- To make Magento migration process as hassle-free as possible, install a fresh copy of Magento 2 on the same hosting server where your Magento 1 store is located.
Theme Migration
Magento 2 introduces new methodologies and technologies for delivering enhanced shopping and store experience to the merchants and users. Developers can take advantages of new ways of creating awesome Magento 2 themes or modify the current ones to make them compatible with the Magento 2 standards. You should keep in mind that you cannot directly migrate your Magento 1 theme to Magento 2.
Hassle free to buy and install a Magento 2 theme from the Theme forest and Evelto.
Extension Migration
Extensions are essential components that provide new features and extend the functionalities of your Magento store. The next step in Magento migration process is to install the desired Magento 2 extensions available on Magento Marketplace.
Remember that, Magento 1 extensions will not work on Magento 2. You will experience severe compatibility issues while integrating Magento 1 extensions into Magento 2.
Only install the relevant extensions that are available and required for your Magento 2 stores. The Magento developers, community and development agencies are still working hard on porting Magento 1 extensions to Magento 2.
If you want to do it on your own, and want to learn more about Magento 2 extension development, please have a look at my how to create Magento 2 extension blog post.
Customization
In many cases, the custom code used by your Magento 1 store is compatible with Magento 2. Magento offers a Code Migration Toolkit that helps you in this process. It should be noted here that due to structural differences in the two platforms, This Magento migration may require additional work to make sure that the custom code successfully integrates with the Magento 2 store.
Data Migration
The last action you need to perform during Magento migration process is moving your Magento 1 settings and data to Magento 2. To ease up the Magento migration process, Magento has officially released Magento 2 Data Migration Tool that helps developers migrate their store data and settings using CLI commands. It makes the Magento migration process hassle-free and helps in migrating critical data (products, categories, orders, store configurations & settings, etc.) to Magento 2.
Data Migration Tool migrates the entire data from the database of Magento 1 platform to the database of Magento 2 platform based on a set of rules defined in the XML files. As of now, the Data Migration Tool only transfers data and settings. Extensions, themes, and other code customizations of Magento 1 store cannot be automatically migrated to Magento 2 store. You will have to reach out to your theme/extension provider to see if they have provided an exporting option yet for Magento 2 platform.
