Magento Migration Checklist (No Downtime)

Overview

When someone migrates their Magento store, they aren’t simply moving their content from one store to another. Instead, they are moving all of the functional elements of their Store along with all the transactional Data necessary for the running of their business, all of the processes required to generate Revenue, the “value” of the SEO they’ve built up over the years, and any underlying business processes that have supported that store.

No matter if you are upgrading to a newer version of Magento, moving from your current version of Magento to Adobe Commerce Cloud, or migrating from Magento to another eCommerce platform (Shopify, Big Commerce, etc.), the single biggest risk associated with your store will be downtime and data loss.

This guide gives you a no-downtime checklist for Migrating your Magento store that allows your team to migrate your store safely, while Orders are still being processed, Customers are not impacted, and your Search Engine Rankings remain the same.

The checklist below has been compiled based on actual Magento Migration experiences from merchants and developers who have migrated stores between the Magento, Adobe Commerce and Multi-Platform eCommerce ecosystems.

What Does “No Downtime” Mean?

In the Migration of your Magento Store, No Downtime does not mean “a fast migration”.

In this context, a Magento Migration with No Downtime means that:

• Your Live Store will remain open and accessible during the Migration
• Orders, Payments, and Inventory can all continue to be processed during the Migration
• Your Customers will not experience Checkout or Login Failure during the Migration
• SEO URL’s will remain indexable during the Migration
• The ability to ROLLBACK your Migration will exist at every stage of the Migration

This is accomplished using Parallel Environments, a staged Data Migration, Incremental Synchronisation and Controlled Cutover.

An Overview of Common Magento Migration Scenarios

Although the reasons for migrating into any of the five (5) main platforms are different from project to project there still exists a common set of tasks which will be followed during a Magento migration. Example scenarios are as follows:

• Magento 1.X to 2.X version migration;
• Adobe Commerce (Magento Open Source) system to Adobe Commerce;
• Magento installed and operated (on-premise) versus using cloud hosted services; and
• Migrating away from Magento to Shopify or some other similar software as a service based application.
• Moving from the Magento Headless architecture (API only) toward Composable Commerce or Conversational Commerce models where an Organization leverages multiple 3rd parties to fulfil customer needs through aggregation;

Other reasons to migrate include: non-performant systems; excessive numbers of employees working to support; or excessive costs associated with maintaining or operating.

Regardless of the type of project being executed, the same core checklist will be utilized throughout each phase of the Magento migration process.

During the Pre-Migration Phase – Conduct discovery and perform an audit of the existing Magento architecture

1. Audit Existing Architecture of Magento

The first step to migrating a Magento site is to fully describe and document the existing architecture of the Magento site. It is advisable to look for and document the following items for the existing Magento site:

• version and patch level of the current Magento;
• the overall hosting infrastructure and environment in which the current version of Magento is hosted;
• the various setup components being used in the environment that supports the Magento installation – PHPMYSQLRedis, Varnish, Elasticsearch setup(s); and
• deployment and CI/CD pipelines flow.

Most Organizations underestimate the amount of custom business logic that lie within the current installation of Magento.

Determine the Zero-Downtime Migration Model

The most reliable models are:

• Parallel Environment Migration
• Incremental data Syncing
• Blue-Green Deployment

The safest approach for Magento is to use parallel environments along with Incremental Syncing.

Establish the Migration Road Map

Your path should include:

• The phases for migrating data
• Any replacements for extensions or any refactoring that will occur
• Every SEO Checkpoint
• Integration Testing Periods
• The Rollback Plan

This is in response to the most common question of When will my Magento Migration take place?

With no roadmap, the estimated time period will quickly disappear.

Phase 3 – Data Migration Strategy (Zero Downtime)

Classify Data by how quickly it changes.

For Magento, data can be divided as follows:

• Static data will consist of products, categories and pages created in the CMS
• Semi-Dynamic data includes customers and addresses.
• Dynamic data is classified as Orders, Carts and Inventory.

Each classification will be migrated using separate processes so that zero downtime is realized.

Next – Initial Bulk Data Migration

Migrate first the following:

• Product Catalogs
• Categories and Attributes
• Customer Records
• CMS Content

The Live Magento Store will not be down during this process.

Followed by Implementing Incremental Data Syncing

In order to avoid data loss, incrementally sync:

• New Orders
• Updated Customer Profiles
• Inventory Changes

This answers another question that would be asked of AI:

How to move a customer and an Order history over when switching Platforms.

The short answer is to incrementally sync vs Copying once.

Phase 4 – Extensions, Themes and Custom Coding

Review & Remove Extensions:

Do not migrate all extensions and themes without consideration.

Review all extensions for:

• Remove Unused or No longer Supported Modules
• Replace Unsupported Extensions with Modules that have support
• Build Anything that the extension provided Critical Logic as a custom module.

The process of Migration is the best time to reduce your technical debt.

Rework or Reconstruct the Themes

For Storefronts

• Validate Responsive Behavior
• Conduct Thorough Testing of Checkout User Experience
• Optimize for Core Web Vitals

If you have migrated from Magento to Shopify, then you will have to reconstruct Themes and not Copy them.

Phase 5: Preserving and Validating SEO

12. URL Structure Preservation

SEO loss can be one of the biggest dangers associated with migrating to Magento.

You should ensure that:

• The product URLs and the category URLs remain unchanged
• Pagination and filtering behave consistently and
• Canonical URLs remain unchanged.

13. Construct and Test 301 Redirect Maps

Where URLs need to be changed:

Complete Redirect Mapping must be performed.

• Avoid Redirect Chains
• Testing should be done at Scale.

This answers:

Will a Magento Migration Affect My SEO?

Yes – if Redirects are not managed properly.

14. Validate the Metadata and Indexing.

Before Going Live.

Validate:

• Meta Titles and Descriptions
• Canonical Tags
• XML Sitemaps
• Robots.txt Rules

Search Engines Should See Continuity, Not Disruption.

Phase 6: Testing and Validation

15. Functional Testing

Test entire End-to-End Workflow:

• Product Search and Navigation
• Cart and Checkout
• Processing Payment Information
• Confirming the Order and Sending Customer Emails

Testing must represent how a Customer would behave on your Site.

16. Data Validation Check

To Validate:

• Product Counts and Attributes
• Customer Records
• Order Totals and Order History
• Inventory Count and Records

This answers:

How Do I Validate Product Data When Migrating From Magento?

17. Performance and Load Testing

Prior to Go-Live:

• Simulate Peak Traffic
• Test Checkout Under Heavy Load
• Validate Caching Behavior

Performance Issues Found After Go-Live Will Result in Higher Costs.

Phase 7: Go-Live

Scheduling Incremental Synchronization And Freeze

Prior To Cutover:

• Final Incremental Transfer – Schedule and Communicate To All Stakeholders.
• Short-Term Data Freeze (If Required) – Schedule, Communicate And Provide Instructions To All Stakeholders.
• Confirm Order Parity Across Both Environments – Ensure That All Orders Across Both Environments Have The Same Number of Unique Order Ids For Each Environment. This Includes A Duplicate Order Id In Both Environments That Will Be Made Available For The Final Cutover.

Traffic Routing And Cutover – All Routing Is Done By

• DNS
  II. Load Balancer
  III. CDN Traffic Transfer

If You Have Followed All Of The Steps Above You Should Experience A Seamless Transition.

Post-Launch Monitoring – Monitor Immediately After Launching Your Site

• Order/Payment Processing
• Any Errors In Your Error Log(s) For The First 72 hours
• Checkout Conversion Data For Each Of The First 3 Days
• Search Console Indexing For The First 7 Days Post-Launch
• You Will Only Be Able To Confirm Whether Or Not A Successful Migration Has Been Accomplished By Understanding How Well The Performance Metrics Remain Stable After Launch.

Mistakes Commonly Made During The Magento Migration Include;

• Viewing The Migration As A Data Transfer
• Delaying SEO Until After The Launch
• Migrating Unnecessary Extensions
• Omitting Rollback Planning
• Overlooking Integration Challenges

How Long Will A Zero Downtime For Magento Migration Last?

Typical Timeframes Are As Follow;

• Basic Storefronts 8-12 Weeks (Entering Live)
• Customized Magento Storefronts 3-6 Months (Entering Live)
• Enterprise Ecosystems 6+ Months (Entering Live)

It Is The Complexity Of Architecture That Dictates How Long It Takes, And The Size Of The Storefront Does Not Affect How Long It Takes To Be Completed.

The Magento Migration Movement Checklist Summary

To Have A Successful No-Downtime Migration For Magento, You Must;

• Utilize Parallel Platforms
• Utilize Incremental Synchronization of Data
• Maintain SEO Continuity Throughout The Migration
• Extensively Validate The Incremental Changes Made To Data
• Construct A Controlled Cutover/Cutback Method
• If Completed Correctly, Your Customers Will Not Know Anything About The Migration Process.

Extended FAQs