Migrate from Magento Enterprise to Community - php

I had a question regarding Magento: -
Currently I have a client whose online site and catalog was being built on magento, however they are wanting to divide up their site to use a different platform for the catalog management and consumer purchasing experience, while keeping the rest of their corporate site intact on magento.
Since they were using enterprise before, the idea is to move to Community to use for their corporate site, however I'm wondering if this is feasible to do from a migration standpoint. Is there any way to port across their CMS pages (catalog isn't important) from their old enterprise version to a fresh community version, and have it remain intact?

Enterprise has lots of additional features in place. Also its URL table are modified. So you need to check if these features are used in design.If so you need to remove all those plus you might have to move some data or populate some tables.
Its possible to move back from enterprise to community.But is not a cake walk.

Related

What are steps to migrate magento from enterprise edition to community edition?

I'm working on a magento Enterprise edition store and I want to migrate it to Community Edition.
I'm new to magento, please help me with some steps that I can follow to migrate EE to CE.
Could you please provide some ideas?
In my mind there are two different approaches.
You can start fresh with a new community install and bring over your code and design modifications and then your data.
Or you can try to downgrade your installation by "upgrading" to the latest version of community.
The way to go would depend on what modifications or customizations are in place
Not all data can be moved as some of the tables and fields are not in community edition.
Steps suggested:
1. Install fresh magento community version.
2. Copy theme folder from ent site and paste in communiyt site.this will probably break at places and you will have to fill.
3. Magento has data import export system so use that to import products.
4. Similarly apply import export for customer(You might have to go with some 3rd party code for this).
5. Apply configuration via admin.
I am not sure whether you want to move order data too.This part is going to be complex.
See https://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/6706/how-to-migrate-from-enterprise-edition-to-community-edition
Yanted has written a fabulous guide to this - some of the EE features in >= 1.13 actually make upgrades a little more painful than the below writeup would lead you to believe. As Marius points out in the comments that all passwords will have to be reset as encryption methods are handled differently between EE/CE.
See the blog for more details.
http://blog.yanted.com/2014/02/21/downgrading-magento-enterprise-to-community/
Original post:
Migrating is actually very easy - point your CE codebase at your production database. There's little more to it than that (see below for some folder removal information).
If you're using a well-built EE-compatible theme it should be backward compatible.
Here are some little-known EE features you'll need to watch out for when downgrading to Community:
No access to Customer Attributes from Admin Panel
Customer segments will go away
Catalog events, private sales, Invitations etc. will go away
CMS hierarchies are not supported in CE
Banners are not supported in CE
RMA - people always seem to forget about RMA (information will be resident in db)
Admin Logging information will be inaccessible (still resident in db)
If you have a large portion of your CMS built in EE I recommend you take a very thorough and methodical approach and make sure that your new CE theme (or backwardly-compatible EE theme) support the data that is still resident.
I also suggest not dropping any tables from the db prefixed with enterprise - as well as not removing any enterprise folders from your 3rd party themes. These are not considered as part of the EE install and you should take them along with you when you leave. You will need to remove the files and folders from the following locations:
app/code/core/Enterprise
app/design/frontend/enterprise
app/design/adminhtml/default/default/layout/enterprise
app/design/adminhtml/default/default/template/enterprise
skin/adminhtml/default/enterprise
skin/frontend/enterprise
app/etc/modules/Enterprise_*.xml
js/enterprise
LICENSE_EE.txt
LICENSE_EE.html
And of course, you need to consider the real biggie: Full Page Cache. I highly recommend that you find a decent 3rd party Full Page cache.
Best of luck!

Can WordPress be used with extended PHP coding?

I almost feel dumb/ignorant for asking but I have never used Wordpress in my life. My primary skill of recent has been developing secure internet/intranet applications in PHP for healthcare companies. Every now and then I get asked to do some personal work for friends or coworkers but don't have the time or willingness to learn something new with my busy schedule.
Recently, I was approached to develop a site for a non-profit education group in which the group would need to update content on a regular basis. Simple CMS system should do the trick and while I've never used it, what if I built the site for them on Wordpress? It would give a few of the employees the ability add and update blog posts and keep new content fresh on the site. The site would also need to maintain a member 'log in' area with security being a top concern which I have no idea if Wordpress is capable of on its own. I have no problem building the latter in straight PHP but I am curious, is it possible to truly integrate the two?
I would like to build something like this site:
http://tf.dtbaker.com.au/template/child_care/index.html
but add in the security/member only area features they mentioned while keeping the ability for 'blogging'. I recently came across a few hosted CMS providers (such as Surreal CMS http://surrealcms.com/) as a method to manage the CMS aspects but if there are better solutions, I am all ears.
Note: Using WP solely as a subdomain for any blogging aspects is not an option.
Thank you ahead of time.
WordPress is extendable using PHP and their Plugin system. WP has a basic level of user authentication and permission level to handle site management and maintenance. There are plugins available which allow you to implement member only features. Google search for WordPress membership plugin shows up quite a few hits.
Regarding security of WordPress, we have 3 websites running on WordPress for the last 5 years. Security has improved since version 3.x of WP compared to the earlier versions. There are plugins that help from doing things like scan the system for security holes (wrong permissions on files etc.) as well as plugins that claim to make your site more secure. But the best security is really understanding the WordPress system, how it works, and ensuring that the plugins you install are properly tested and vetted before being installed in production.
HTH
It's hard to make a recommendation without knowing the specifics, but if the majority of the functionality of the site has nothing to do with blogging, you'll probably end up spending a lot of time writing plugins to modify the way Wordpress works, and then you'll have to potentially maintain those plugins as the API changes as new versions of Wordpress are released. Since you're dealing with health care companies and a need for security, not upgrading when a new version of Wordpress comes out could potentially be a security risk. You'll probably also find that Wordpress's "blog-centricness" will start to get in your way.
From what you've said in your question, my inclination would be to use a CMS to build the site if I were in your shoes.
That's not to say that you can't use custom themes and plugins to add CMS-like functionality to Wordpress and end up with some nice looking sites. The folks at WooThemes (http://www.woothemes.com/) are doing a darn good job at that from what I've seen, and there are other folks doing the same thing. I just wouldn't go that route if I were you.

Joomla's extent for a custom but yet simple web social platform

I know Joomla as a CMS manager, which is a system that manages different contents (texts, media,... etc).
But people tend to say: ALWAYS use joomla for your pro projects... bla bla
Let's imagine I need to do the following:
A web site where registered users post quotes (like in chucknorrisfacts.com for example), quotes are moderated, then published to people. And quotes have comments (from registered users).
How would Joomla help me easily building such a website ?
Because I think I can develop it very fast by starting from the scratch, but in another hand I'm very very interested in using Joomla as a base in order to learn it, and experience CMS methodology.
The Joomla administration console helps putting components on the websites and all that stuff, but what happens when we do need to store user input, submit it to users moderation, then publish this content and allow comments on it ? Does this require Joomla plugin development ? Or is there another road that could be taken...
My question might seem noobish, that's because this is going to be my first experience with a CMS though.
Wow. Where to start. First, the Joomla core does not support all of the requirements as it does not have a built in commenting system. Next, plenty of "pro" sites use Joomla, Wordpress, and Drupal. Big sites with big traffic and big budgets. More and more corporate sites are going looking to OS CMS, they have really come a long way in the last couple of years. Last, Joomla 1.0 stopped being supported a LONG time ago. Since 1.0, 1.5 released and had 22 updates, and 1.6 released earlier this month.
As for the original question, Joomla would be an excellent choice for the requirements described because it can easily be done with just K2. You can set up a specific content type for quotes, assign registered users as authors that can submit content, and turn on commenting for registered users. All of this is built in to K2 without any modifications.
I think Joomla does support that from core.
The quote of using joomla on pro sites is WRONG.
The real pro sites are custom build or use a professional CMS.
The semi pro sites use joomla (or any other OSS CMS).
Why?
Joomla is (at least the 1.0 version) slow, and not friendly to your server.
Also Joomla is vulnerable to attacks from script kiddies.
Not as unsafe as Wordpress though...

can you create sites automatically (with a html page) with drupal on the same server?

I've read that you can host multiple drupal sites, while they use the same core files(so not needing to copy a few megabytes for each site). I wanted to ask if there is an automated tool that can create a new site, while let you choose a template and then connecting it to the drupal system?
Are there tools like that(with a web layout)?
I would really like to get a few pointers as to how, lets say a company for building websites, will be able to use an automated system to build sites easily. I also understand that with drupal you have alot of manuver to edit your own code, when lets say you want some future in one of the sites. Is it pure php/html or in order to do that you have to delve into core Drupal futures? Also what are the chances that somebody already did it before and you can use this module?
Last, if a company wants to move to a Drupal system (web development company), how much of a transformation is it? Should they be Drupal core experts in order to not lose themself? Or they can keep a drupal base while still using the regular html/php? I really appreciate any leads.
Thanks.
*the questions is also intended to Joomla.
To answer your first question, the Aegir project is a system whereby you can use Drupal to create and manage Drupal sites. That includes installing from install profiles--which are sort of like site templates--or a distribution (Drupal installations pre-packaged with modules). The downside is that installation is fairly involved, more so than just Drupal itself. There's a lot of documentation on the Drupal groups site for Aegir. For a straight multi-site install, there's some documentation on the subject, but the install instructions with the software come with help that you should consult first.
As for your second question, the answer is (unfortunately) "it depends". Knowledge of PHP, especially "the Drupal way", plus integration with the community, are huge plusses. If you intend to join the community, immediately sign up both yourself and all developers an account on Drupal.org and, if you find solutions to bugs or other problems, providing back is a sign of goodwill, and it usually pays back dividends (one example: you submit a patch, it gets included in a module, and then the community maintains it for you). Developers need not be experts with Drupal core, but they need to be pretty comfortable with learning the API and knowing how to create sites for clients in general. First start with requirements gathering, then see how it fits into the Drupal way of doing things. If it doesn't fit, then use the right tool.
That's a tip of the iceberg view from the developer's point of view (as opposed to the businessman's point of view). There are plenty of companies that do only Drupal and there are plenty of companies where Drupal is one tool they use out of many.

ezpublish for practical e-commerce?

For while now I have been using ezpublish as a framework, and CMS when my web projects are based on PHP, and I must say, I have grown accustomed to it because of its flexibility for most scenarios.
However, I've had to build e-commerce sites now and then, and ezpublish includes a webshop that caters for the e-commerce needs of your installation, and of-course with all the tools you need to extend, should you need to.
Is it worthwhile and optimal to use the inbuilt webshop for an e-commerce solution, or should I rather go with an all out e-commerce solution like Magento, which has made a significant impact in that sector?
Some have made the choice of using both solutions, connected with each other ( www.ezgento.org ). Can be achieved mostly due to the very open architecture of eZ Publish. I do not have enough insight on the Magento side, so i can not tell whether it is easily "pluggable" too.
I know for fact that some ez Publish Community members are building large-scale e-shops with eZ Publish, either as a pure Content Management tool, serving content and only content to dedicated ecommerce tools, either as an integrated solution, then relying on the built-in webshop module.
I am sure you would get a fruitful discussion if asking your question directly in eZ Publish's community : http://share.ez.no/forums
Hope it helps,
Cheers,
Magento is great. It's chock full of features that you would normally pay a lot of money for in a shopping cart (or spend an eternity implementing yourself). Mostly anything you don't have in the base installation you can get from the community.
But it's extremely complicated. Expect to step a lot of time setting up your store, as the default install is not ready to go. Expect to spend time adding a template, which will take much longer than you expect. Expect to stretch your PHP skills in ways that you cannot anticipate.
Generally, Magento is not the "fast" option, nor the "easy" one, just the good one. If none of that dissuades you, it's a great option :)
Hope that helps. Thanks,
Joe
eZ Publish has Payment Gateways
It allows you to define precisely segment you category/products/prices/taxes/currencies in a flexible way
it is secure
eZ's technology is based on Open Standards and XML, which means that eZ Publish integrates natively with most of the payment gateways, as well as with many leading CRM and ERP solutions like Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Microsoft Navision or SAP.
It integrates with Online Marketing Suites in order to segment customers and provide advanced content-centric analytics
eZ Find, built on top of Lucene/solR, gives backthe relevancy of search results, and providing new ways of navigating content (facets, etc.)
It has a good cache system
See official pres about eZ Publish + eCommerce for more infos

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