10 Best Practices for Magento maintenance & support Organized by InSync, Plum Tree Group and Phase3Commerce Ok so you’ve launched your new eCommerce site. Congratulations! Now the real work begins. In this webinar we help eCommerce managers, CMOs and Business Owners identify what it takes to put together a successful ongoing ecommerce maintenance and support process. - Review 10 best practices. - Assess the continuous delivery model and how it may be a game changer for your operations. - How to select a good partner.

1. 10 Best Practices for Magento
Maintenance & Support

2. Today’s Presenters
Gene Ferriter
The Plum Tree Group
@ThePlumTreeGrp
Solution Specialist
Maria Delgado
CommerceBlend
@CommerceBlend
Marketing Specialist
Join the conversation #Magento2Webinar
Ali Hashmi
CommerceBlend
@CommerceBlend
Magento eCommerce
Consultant

3. Points to be addressed
1
Maintenance
is Dead
2
The New
Maintenance
Paradigm
3
The Paradigm Shift
(How to do it)
5
Reviewing
the 10 Best
Practices
6
How to Select
Your Partner
7
Free Whitepaper
For Download
4
Continuous
Delivery Model
8
Next Steps
+ Q&A

4. Download Your Whitepaper Now!
Shared by Express
Commerce, delve deeper
into the most important
information you can apply
from now:
The 10 best practices
your team should follow
for maintenance

5. MAINTENANCE IS DEAD…

6. “What do you mean it’s not fixed yet?? I told him
we needed that new button three weeks ago!!”

7. “What do you mean it’s not fixed yet?? I told him
we needed that new button three weeks ago!!”
© Jerry King webdesignerdepot.com

8. Maintenance is Dead…the way it is
currently practiced
“Maintenance is a chore, even a hassle.”
• Reactive instead of proactive
• Working in a Silo approach
–Assigned to the ‘B Team’
–Lack of familiarity with project history
–Lack of communications with PM, Account Manager or original Dev team
–Not integrated with marketing, BA or other departments
• Interruptions in service or features
• Random approach with no guiding methodology

9. “What do you mean it’s not fixed yet?? I told him
we needed that new button three weeks ago!!”

10. “Maintenance reframed becomes
an opportunity.”
•Proactive instead of reactive
•Integrated approach – teams working in concert
•Continuous Delivery model
•Adherence to Best Practices methodology

11. The New Maintenance Paradigm
Traditional Paradigm
New Paradigm
Product Quality
TimetoMarket

12. The New Maintenance Paradigm
Risk/
cost
Risk/
cost
Time Time
v1.0
Release
v2.0
Release
v1.0
Continuous Releases

13. main·te·nance
mānt(ə)nəns,ˈmān(t)nəns/
noun
1. the process of maintaining or
preserving someone or something,
or the state of being maintained

14. cul·ti·vate
ˈkəltəˌvāt/
verb
1. to grow and care for
2. to grow or raise (something) under
conditions that you can control

15. Maintenance: your website is a static thing
Cultivation: your website is a living entity
Don’t maintain your website any longer.
Maintenance is dead!
Cultivate your website. It is alive!

16. WILL THIS COST A LOT MORE?

17. Traditional Maintenance Costs
Conservative
Estimate:
Year 1: 35%
Year 2: 30%
Year 3: 25%
Year 4: 30%
Year 5: 35%
“What I have experienced is
about 35% of the development
cost will be spent during the
first year of maintenance, 30%
in second year, 25% in 3rd year.
After 3 years, the cost again
goes up by 5 to 10% every year.
Hence, total reengineering of
application may be required
after 5 or 6 years.”
–Ravi Mari, Experienced Developer

18. Maintenance Costs
Less Optimistic
Estimate:
Year 1: 60%
Year 2: 60%
Year 3: 60%, etc.
Source: Frequently Forgotten
Fundamental Facts about
Software Engineering, by
Robert L. Glass
The "60/60" rule
of software:
Maintenance = 60% average of
software costs
Enhancements = 60% of
software maintenance costs
Error correction = 17% of
software maintenance costs.

19. Don’t spend all of the money inevitably
spent on Maintenance just to fix problems
and maintain the status quo.
Instead, be nimble, forward thinking,
innovative, and proactive. Use the same
money to cultivate your website based on
real insights from testing, data and
integrated efforts. Make your online
business GROW!

20. HOW DO WE DO THIS?
HOW DO WE MAKE THE
PARADIGM SHIFT?

21. It Starts With A Shift in Company Culture
•There is life beyond silos
•Break down the walls and collaborate
•Develop integrative solutions between departments
•Test different approaches and use the analytics for
insights on how to cultivate your website, not just
maintain it

22. The Right Tools

23. THE RIGHT PROCESS:
CONTINUOUS DELIVERY MODEL

24. What is a Continuous Delivery Model?

25. What is a Continuous Delivery Model?
Software
Engineering
Approach? Practices?
Ability?

26. What is a Continuous Delivery Model?
Continuous delivery is
a discipline that allows
online merchants,
among other things,
to gain efficiency for
their maintenance
processes while
improving the quality
of their products and
services.

27. How? - Assessing A
Continuous Delivery Model

28. Assessing the Paradigm Shift
1. Make sure you
have the resources
you’ll need to
execute this project
(people + mindset +
tangible assets)
2. Assume a
proactive attitude.
Identify problems
before they show
up.
3. Structure and
design a model
that works best
for your needs.

29. Assessing the Paradigm Shift
1. Make sure you
have the resources
you’ll need to
execute this project
(people + mindset +
tangible assets)

30. Assessing the Paradigm Shift
Barriers to Continuous Delivery
Organizational Culture
Lack of Dev+Ops Integration
Technical Hurdles
Lack of Understanding
Business Readiness
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

31. How to do the Cultural Shift
• Get your executive board buy-in.
• Make sure that your organization’s
organizational structure encourages
its staff to be proactive and
collaborative
– Flat structure rather than hierarchical.
– A team’s responsibility rather than
individual auditing.
– More flexibility and autonomy, less
bureaucracy.
• Create, communicate and live brand’s
values → Promote innovation
• Coordinate your team, technological
and content resources accordingly.
• Execute
• Optimize

32. How to do the Cultural Shift (examples)

33. Assessing the Paradigm Shift
2. Assume a
proactive attitude.
Identify problems
before they show
up.

34. Assume a Proactive Attitude (examples)

35. Assessing the Paradigm Shift
3. Structure and
design a model
that works best
for your needs.

36. Structure and Design a Model
“We use continuous delivery, so
every developer is accountable for
their own code. As a result, the effort
of each developer is aligned to the
goals of the company, and that
keeps us lean, focused and fast.”
–Mario Cruz, CTO, Choose Digital
“By itself, the simplified user
management justified the cost.
When combined with the responsive,
expert support, the ROI has far
exceeded our expectations”
–Brenton Witkowski, Acxiom

37. When should you assess a continuous
delivery model?
• Business Owners → When thinking about
your business plan, the market you’ll be
targeting and the industry you’ll be
competing on.
• eCommerce Managers → When an
iterative process that affects user
experience or web services is becoming
unwieldy due to increasing project
complexity.
• CMO (chief marketing officer) → When
tracking how their current industry or
maket might change, evolve or suffer a
breakdown due to innovation.

38. When should you assess a continuous
delivery model?
VS.

39. How a continuous delivery model might be
a game changer for your company
• Low Risk Releases
• Faster time to market
• Higher quality
• Lower Costs
• User Feedback
• Happier Teams.

40. However, take into account…
• Customer preferences
• Domain restrictions
• Lack of test automation
• Differences in environments

41. REVIEWING THE 10 BEST PRACTICES

42. Keep Your Magento
Install Clean
• Error Log Checking
• Archive, purge the serverand
database logs
• Clean out images no longer
used
• Monitor logged exceptions
• Review 404 error logs. Set up
redirects

43. Optimize Your
Database
• Back up your database
periodically.
• Schedule backups during
off-peak hours
• Test to ensure you have a
robust backup
• Keep 3rd party application
database separate
• Set up cron job for reindex

44. Keep Your Magento
Up To Date
Updated Security Patches
=Less Vulnerability

45. Keep Your
Extensions Updated
Risk Assessment
Proactive Updates

46. Make Sure Your Staging
Site is Updated
Use the Staging Site to test the
functionality of the store before
any update is published to the real
audience (shipping, product
content, new payment)
Test any design/coding change in
the Staging Store to avoid software
defects, incompatibilities or
extension conflicts.
It is strongly recommended to
have a robust staging version of
the website to match the
production as closely as possible.

47. Application Load
Testing Performance
• Alter the resources allocated
to the server and perform data
snapshots in between tests to
ensure the consistency within
the site.
• Add artificial traffic to the
checkout and particular product
pages to check the development
and strength of the site.
• Produce reports in response
times and infrastructure
performance.
LoadRunner

48. 24/7 Server Monitoring
• Use a server monitoring tool to make sure your
site is always working and to identify potential
issues on time.
• Some advanced site monitoring tools like New
Relic, provide web application alerts to always
keep you informed with important changes or
updates.
• Evaluate how the set is performing for you and
your users according to an industry-standard
measurement.
• Tools: New Relic, Ruxit, Shoppimon
Features
to take into
consideration:
• Code Segments
• Key Transactions
• SQL Statements

49. Set A Release
Deployment Process
• Routine site deployments should
be included in a strong process
plan.
• Ask your team to keep track of
the code version control process
(e.g. SVN/GIT).
• Test your system in your
development environment and
pull all customs code in source
control.

50. Ensure Site Security
• Use the latest Magento version, it
usually includes solutions to prior
security conflicts.
• Use a two-factor authentication
extension that provides an extra layer
of security.
• Run scheduled patches provided by
your hosting company
• Run periodic site audits to identify
potential threats (ideally every 6
months)
• Secure your data by using a SFTP
(Secured File Transfer Protocol)
• Recommended Tools: Rublon,
Extendware

51. Have An
Emergency Contact
• Make sure you have a contact
on the support team.
• Outsourced maintenance?
Work with an account or
project manager.

52. HOW TO SELECT YOUR
PARTNER ON THIS

53. ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
Who Are You?
Ask for the company’s background, team,
location and primary focus

54. ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
Are You Experienced?
Make sure the company has experience with
Magento and complex projects

55. ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
Communication Breakdown
Try to gain insights in regards to ticketing system, expected response
times, hours of availability, account managers at your disposal, etc

56. ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
Maintenance Philosophy
Try to figure out if maintenance is a core priority
or more of an auxiliary service

57. ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
Methodology and Costs
What every client wants to know:
pricing and cost / benefit relation

58. ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
After the Work is Done
Ask for warranty policy, training options, site
monitoring, testing and follow ups

59. ADDITIONAL RESOURCE

60. Download Your Whitepaper Now!
Shared by Express
Commerce, delve deeper
into the most important
information you can apply
from now:
The 10 best practices
your team should follow
for maintenance

61. UP NEXT…

62. Be sure to join us for the next webinar in the series:
B2B Commerce with
SAP & Magento
Organized by Insync, Commerceblend
and Plum Tree Group
This webinar will feature informationabout:
• B2B Digital Commerce Trends
• Assessing your needs / How to create a MoSCoW list
• InSync Magento / SAP Business Connector
• Featured Case Study

63. Time for Q&A
commerceblend.com
plumtreegroup.net
insync.co.in
phase3commerce.com
Download for free here