Shifting to an Upgraded Platform: Whats New In Magento 2

September 14, 2015,
Shifting to an Upgraded Platform: Whats New In Magento 2
Creating a professional E-Commerce website capable of competing in today’s aggressive market is no easy task. Factors such as product placement, attractive User Interface (UI), innovative designing and marketing are important factors in deciding how a visitor will behave and whether your product will be purchased or not.

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Magento 1 Extensions

Magento - Your Trusty E-Commerce Companion

This is where Magento comes into action. Being an interactive yet simplified open source E-Commerce solution, Magento features a huge development community which is ever willing to lend a helping hand to new users. Magento allows even beginner programmers to create and manage their sites. And it gets better: Magento has announced the release of Magento 2 Merchant General version. With the new release date set for November 15, the online community is excited that they are finally receiving an update. Don’t get me wrong; Magento is an awesome E-Commerce platform. Its versatility, scalability and user friendliness are among the many features which differentiate it from the huge number of E-Commerce platforms in the market. But with the passage of time, there has arisen a necessity for Magento to receive an upgrade. What comes new will be better, more stable and will include even more features.

How will it affect current Magento users?

The old versions work just as well as they used to, so feel free to continue using them. Magento 2 is incredibly interactive and you will have the permission to choose your own path to upgrade Magento. If you feel like using the Enterprise Edition, the Magento online support has you covered for 3 years otherwise the Community Edition will always benefit from the online community and help on forums. All in all, Magento will stop development on its old platform and focus on developing the newer and improved software. Magento will discontinue releasing major updates and changes to the platform and focus attention to the next big breakthrough: Magento 2.

So, what new?

Magento has spent a lot of time creating its latest baby, so it is no surprise that it outperforms its previous version with a remarkable difference. Full Page Caching Modified Indexers will not stop processes; they will continue performing in the background. Advanced Indexers Increased performance with fast query presentation and specially designed updates. Multiple Admins enabled Multiple admin users enabled which allows faster site modification and product update. Fixed data clashes issue caused by multiple Admins. XML Validation XML code is checked against rules and regulations. This significantly helps programmers to check for errors because the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) automatically warns about them. This permits faster, more accurate coding with real time debugging. Simplified Searching Layered navigation and modularized search interface permits enabling/disabling search functions or simply eliminating it. 3rd party interfaces are also supported. Modified Theme Inheritance Development on themes and getting them is now simplified and ever faster.

Tell me more about the update

Magento 2 has immense development behind it, which means it has tons of new features and improvements. Statistically, it outperforms its previous versions by 20%. It also boasts:
  • Compatibility with Varnish 4 and HHVM 3.6
  • Intelligent coding, resulting in significantly reduced JavaScript code
  • Improved image compression which does not distort quality
  • Reworked layout, which streamlines performance
  • Browsers permit static content data caching

“How” and “When” should I upgrade to Magento 2?

Even though Magento 2 is a simplified, user friendly platform, the coding behind it is certainly not. This means that upgrading to Magento 2 is not an easy task. The developers are working to ease migration to the new platform. Upgrading software released by Magento is available, allowing faster and simplified transition by automatically checking requirements. Now we come to the question of “When?” Since it will be a new platform benefiting from tons of development and support, look to upgrade by 2016 at minimum. Magento will release plenty of M2 extensions and updates, so there is no need to fear about crashes and performance redundancy.

Where does this all leave my business at?

Don’t worry, it is not like the new version will negatively affect your business if you choose not to upgrade. Both the old and new versions will be available for use. However, considering that Magento will cease backing Magento Enterprise and focus on the newer product, we highly recommend that you switch to Magento 2. This transition affects many different features of Magento i.e Scalability, output, online transactions, security; the list is endless. The heart of Magento is the community itself and the open source development slogan is “By the community, for the community”. This means that the biggest deciding factor considering the upgrade is the community itself. The community has been looking forward to an upgraded version since 2011. With the hype at its peak and the release date closing in, many are preparing themselves to upgrade their online businesses. Hailing as the predecessor of a highly functional and popular platform, Magento 2 promises to be the next big revolution in online businesses, combining simplicity with high performance on a platform highly rated by the online community.