It is important to keep the Magento up to date with the latest stable releases because it allows a user to leverage all the newest E-commerce functionality by avoiding issues and vulnerabilities from the older version.

However, upgrading your Magento install can be a complicated process especially with sites which uses many community extensions and other customizations.

In this Magento upgrade guide, we will provide a complete checklist for an E-commerce merchant to follow before and after upgrading their install. We have also mentioned a guide for developers with the steps involved in performing a successful upgrade.

Before you initiate :

Make sure to note plan your Magento upgrade. There are many things which might go out of place with the actual upgrade itself, in addition to site performance following the upgrade. For that matter, you should be prepared and informed as possible going into the upgrade and willing to test extensively before going to the upgraded site live.

The upgrade should always take place in a test environment with a test database before it is executed on the production site. Keep an hour or two of downtime when you perform that performs on your live store. We suggest doing it in the morning so that you face low traffic and the minimize any loss of sales. If the testing is done properly then it would take about 15-20 minutes of downtime.

Enter Stock :

Now, when you are ready for the upgrade, it’s time to take inventory of your site. Below are some answers which will help you in the upgrade process.

Q: Which version of Magento is currently running?
A: The version number is shown in the footer of the backend admin panel.

Q: How many extensions are installed on the site?
A: Have a developer take stock of what’s been installed into the app/etc/modules/ directory

Q: Which of these extensions are being used in an integral manner (crucial to the day-to-day operations of the web store)?
A: Any extensions which affect your store product display, promotions, checkout, shipping, payment should be noted carefully.

Q: Have any of the extensions been customized by your developer?
A: If so, try to determine if they modified the extension directly or (better practice) added customizations in a separate module.

Q: Which patches, if any, have been applied to the Magento core?
A: Have a developer compare the app/code/core directory with the base install of your version.

Once your doubts are solved then you can begin to get a good idea of how challenging the upgrade might be…

You may come across few issues if your Magento is very old compared to the current one. If there are a number of extensions installed on your site and they were not tested with the new version then your E-commerce site could run into trouble at the time of upgrading moreover in case of extensions which can alter the functionality of Magento processes such as checkout and promotions. Hence, it is important to know which extensions are causing issues. If you are running a recent version of Magento with limited customization and minimal extensions then you will see the upgrade will be a whole lot cleaner than the older version.

Now the last step is to do a complete run-through of the currently installed site. Clear all the issues you are facing. Further, add products to cart and do a test purchase, test out the sales rules, category pages, go through the backend and load all the configuration pages and test other custom functionality. Always ask a developer to provide the most recent version which is compatible with the new version of Magento. Make sure you check all the freely available extensions that are installed for updates on Magento.

When you are done with the complete inspection of your site and know all the challenges then it’s time to contact us.

Conducting the Upgrade

Before You Begin:

• The upgrade should always be run on a local platform.
• Ensure you to use Version Control in case anything goes wrong
• Use a local copy of the store database.
• Before running anything, run testing on the frontend and backend of the site.
• Grab a copy of the current Magento version
• Get a copy of the newer Magento version

Start your migration

1. Make sure that the Data Migration Tool has a network access to connect to databases. Open ports in your firewall.
2. Stop running all the activities in the Magento 1.x Admin Panel except order management, such as shipping, creating the invoice, credit memos etc.
3. Stop all Magento 1.x cron jobs.
4. Use the migration tool to migrate settings and websites.
5. Copy your Magento 1.x media files to Magento 2.x.
6. Use Data Migration Tool to migrate your data from Magento 1 database to Magento 2.x database. If some of your extensions have data you want to migrate, you might need to install these extensions adapted for Magento 2.x. In case the extensions have a different structure in Magento 2.x database, use the mapping files provided with the Data Migration Tool.
7. Use the Magento indexer: reindex command to reindex all indexers.
8. Thoroughly test your Magento 2.x site.

Test your site

• Now that the upgrade is done successfully, you must test to ensure the core functionality of the Magento site is still running as expected.
• Start with critical path testing. Go to the homepage, navigate to a category page, and subsequently to a product page.
• Make sure you add all product types to your cart. If the store sells configurable products, simple products, groups, bundles, downloadable etc. then they must be tested to ensure the add to cart functionality is working properly.
• Once your cart is filled, conduct a full test checkout to ensure nothing is broken in the most vital area of your site. Place a test order and fulfill it in the backend to ensure everything is running smoothly. (Ensure you are using test credentials for the payment method and shipping methods being tested)
• Test additional functionality such as price rules and product relations. Ensure these modules are functional.
• Now it’s time to test the extensions that are vital to the site. If these extensions are not working, you will either need to disable them or upgrade them from the developer with a version that is compatible with your upgraded version of Magento.

Go live

If your Magento 2.x site is updated and functioning normally.

The following steps will guide to cut over to the new site:

1. Put on maintenance mode your current Magento system. (DOWNTIME STARTS).
2. Now, Press Control+C in the migration tool command window to stop incremental updates.
3. Start your Magento 2.x cron jobs.
4. In your Magento 2.x system, reindex the stock indexer using the command Magento indexer: reindex cataloginventory_stock.
5. Use tool of your choice, hit pages in your Magento 2.x system to cache pages in advance of customers using your storefront.
6. Perform a final verification of your Magento 2.x site.
7. Lastly, change DNS, load balancers, and so on to point to new production hardware (DOWNTIME ENDS)
8. Magento 2.x store is ready to use. You and Your customers can resume all activities.

A few words at the end

For those of you who are determined to move to Magento 2.x. You will run on the most flexible shopping cart framework ever made. Any feature you could possibly think of could be implemented with Magento 2.x.