As the end of life date for Magento 1 is on the horizon in June of next year, it is crucial that you begin to plan your data migration. IT is quite a tricky thing to complete even if you are just moving data from the old version of the same software to the new and upgraded version. This is why you need to fully consider everything involved before upgrading your Magento eCommerce platform.
If you managed to do it right, migration from Magento 1 to the new and improved version of Magento 2 could be seamless. However, in a worst-case scenario, it could cause a situation that’s difficult to turn around easily, such as the loss of important data. To help you avoid that from happening, we’ve put together a list of some tips for what you should do when moving from one platform to another.
Know Your Magento 1 Data Inside Out
To experience the best migration possible, you need to know the data you are moving inside out. This means the basic data structure and customizations that you have made. As Magento 2 schema has the same basic structure as Magento 1, it should be straightforward enough to understand.
Make Sure You Understand the Migration Tool
It is important to understand how the Migration Tool works. It involves a number of important XML mapping files that lists destination columns and tables and sources. Any customized columns and tables, as well as changes to column types, will need to factor in the mappings or the migration will not be a success.
Once you understand the Magento 1 database and how it is structured, have looked at the official documentation related to migration and understand how the tool is going to work, it’s time to get started. The only way you will have a clearer and better understanding of the tool is to actually use it.
So, in a non-production setting, take a backup on MySQL of your Magento 2 database, set up the config.xml file for migration, run through it and see what happens.
Check and Overcome Issues
There may be fails that happen along the way. Don’t panic. The only thing you can do is run your migration, identify shortfalls in the mapping using integrity checks and then alter the mappings and repeat. You may have to clean up the Magento 1 data at this point. Expert companies offer guidance and advice, or you could employ the services of a skilled freelance consultant that can hold your hand through the migration process to ensure your Google rankings are not impaired.
After the data integrity step, you will need to failures in the migration require you reimport #backups of the Magento 2 database, as there is no way current way to undo or revert migrations. Any errors that show up after the Data Integrity Step may not be as specific. You can increase the verbosity, though, with the addition of -v flags into the commands for migration.
Test Everything
After you’ve gotten to grips with the data migration tool and completed the first migration successfully, you need to test everything. And we mean everything. Test out all the features driven by data in your eCommerce build. There is no coming back from this point, so its best to test it all before pushing forward with production.
