A Magento based online retailer will have to do more than just build a great looking storefront and add products. A lot goes into building a successful online retail business that includes all of the technology that makes it work. Proactive maintenance of Magento environments is essential for both development teams and merchants to ensure that their stores remain secure, stable, and scalable. A store’s ability to grow will depend on the relationship between all components of its technology stack including, but not limited to: application code, database(s), extensions, payment processors, APIs, server environments, and 3rd party services. If any component of the technology stack experiences issues — such as an old extension, compatibility issues with another component, or an untested software update — then other aspects of the store’s functionality could suffer including; checkout performance, inventory synchronization, page load times, and/or overall store availability.
Why Magento Maintenance Needs a Development-Focused Approach
Magento is a type of open source software for e-commerce. Developers using Magento are able to modify the system in many ways. For example, they may create custom extensions; integrate with other types of software; modify how customers check out; integrate with ERP systems; and provide customers with personalized shopping experiences.
That flexibility carries technical responsibilities as well.
Production Magento installations can have numerous types of extensions, custom modules, cron jobs, API integrations, themes, payment processors, and configuration options on the server. All of these components will likely be subject to change over time.
As long as the extension you use is compatible with a certain version of Magento, then when that version is upgraded, it's very likely you will have to make some revisions to your extension. After you upgrade to a different version of PHP, your code may operate differently (or may even cease to function) than before. A change made to a third-party API can affect the way your system exchanges information with other systems.
Updating software is much more than simply downloading the latest version of the program. Developers must consider what other programs depend on this software, find out whether new testing tools have been created, analyze the performance of the current software, and verify that important business processes continue to operate correctly when updating software.
Maintain the Core Platform + Extensions
Magento updates are one of the most important maintenance works.
Platform patches, extension updates, security releases, and infrastructure changes should all be reviewed regularly. However, applying updates directly to a live environment can create unnecessary risk. A safer approach is to evaluate and test changes before deploying them to production.
A safer development workflow is generally:
- Reading through the compatibility and release notes.
- Create a current backup of files and databases.
- Apply the update in a development or staging environment.
- Testing custom modules and integrations.
- Run checkout and customer account tests.
- Checking logs for unexpected errors.
- Applying validated changes to production.
This is particularly important for stores with substantial custom development.
Extension updates merit the same attention. Developers should check whether the extension modifies checkout, catalog management, indexing, caching, customer data, or other core processes before updating it.
Check Application Logs Before Problems Are Visible
Many a Magento problem starts out quietly.
A customer may not immediately see repeated API failures, background-job errors, database warnings or PHP exceptions. In time, however, these can be larger operational issues.
Magento developers should regularly check application and server logs for patterns, such as:
- recurring exceptions
- failed cron jobs
- errors in payment integration
- indexing problems
- PHP warnings
- database connection problems
- authentication failures in API
- excessive resource consumption
These signals at your fingertips make troubleshooting so much easier, as developers are able to dig into issues before they turn into widespread problems.
Logging is especially important when you have just deployed new modules, changed server configurations, or updated third-party integrations.
Test the Complete Checkout Workflow
The check out process is one of the most significant components of the system for an online store.
The product page looks fine, however, you may experience problems with calculating shipping costs, payment processing, discount validation, tax calculation and/or order confirmation.
Complete the whole purchasing journey with regular functional testing:
add/remove products; update cart quantity; apply discounts; select shipping; guest checkout; login to existing customer account; process accepted payment types; create order confirmation; verify changes to inventory.
Developers should also test edge cases when appropriate.
For example, what if a payment request expires? What if an item is out of stock when checking out? What will happen if an external shipping API doesn't reply?
By testing these situations, teams can determine how smoothly the software will handle unexpected events.
Monitor Magento Performance at Different Levels
Page speed is not one setting.
There are a number of things that can impact Magento performance including: Application code, Database queries, Caching, Image size, Extensions, Server resources, JavaScript execution, Indexing, External services.
This means that developers should approach performance in a systematic way and not by making random optimization changes.
A slow database query or newly installed extension, for example, might cause the category pages to slow down. A slow checkout process might involve calls to external payment or shipping APIs.
Thus, performance monitoring should consider both front-end and back-end behavior.
Useful areas to go through are:
- server response times
- database query performance
- cache utilization
- cpu and memory usage
- slow api requests
- cron execution times
- Indexing performance
- Javascript and css delivery
- large media assets
By consistently gathering performance data, developers are able to compare the before and after of deployments and find regressions much more quickly.
Regularly Audit Your Custom Code
Customizations are frequently necessary for a Magento e-commerce site, however, these customizations may become a continuous maintenance issue.
Code written a long time ago may be using obsolete methods, older dependencies, or design choices that are no longer supported on the present-day system.
Periodic code reviews can help identify technical debt prior to being able to cause issues with subsequent updates.
Developers need to use caution when developing custom modules that will impact business critical processes (i.e. pricing, checkout, authentication of customers, management of catalogs, payment processing and inventory control).
Code reviews are helpful in finding duplicate logic, excess plugins, inefficient observers, dead module code, and possible security flaws.
Generally speaking, it is safer to address technical debt on an ongoing basis rather than to delay addressing technical debt until a major platform upgrade is planned which would necessitate resolving numerous issues simultaneously.
Increase Security Through Regular Maintenance
As well, Magento installations require ongoing technical support for security reasons.
Passwords do not represent everything that is needed for a secure environment. Additionally, in addition to establishing password controls, developers and administrators will need to determine how they will update (or "patch") platforms, set up user access rights, establish configuration parameters for each server used by the organization, make use of available extensions, establish administrative accounts, create backup plans, and plan for deployments.
Security maintenance should include a review of all administrative users, the removal of any unnecessary user accounts, application of applicable security updates (patches), control over who has access to files, protecting user credentials, and monitoring for any unauthorized modifications.
The third-party extensions, as parts of the app environment, will also undergo review.
Professional groups (like Laconica) consider maintenance to be a collection of related functions including development support, performance evaluation, software updates, problem solving and security control. This is opposed to considering maintenance as a collection of individual problems.
For businesses without a dedicated in-house Magento team, using specialized ongoing Magento maintenance can provide ongoing technical oversight while internal teams focus on commerce operations and product development.
Maintain Good Backups And Test Recovery
Backups are only any good if you can restore them.
A Magento backup strategy needs to include the database, media files, configuration and custom application code. The frequency is based on how often the store’s data is changing.
A busy store with frequent orders may need to have database backups much more frequently than a smaller catalog with limited daily activity.
Also, recovery procedures should be regularly tested.
The development team should know where the backups are, how fast they can be retrieved, and how to restore the system effectively in case of failure.
