Best Practices for Magento Build and Deployment

Frequent Magento deployments are a key consideration for all retail businesses hoping to benefit from having an optimised sales platform that is responsive, streamlined, and user-friendly. eCommerce platforms like Magento give mid-sized independent retailers a more visible presence in the marketplace, helping them to compete more effectively with their larger, established competitors. Having a streamlined build and deployment process is vital in allowing your business to; deploy updates and features faster than your competitors, keeping your site secure and reducing downtime.

If you’re planning to deploy Magento 2 independently, follow the steps below for a successful implementation:

• Use build and deploy scripts to deploy to production. This will standardise the process and vastly reduce the possibility of unexpected results. Many tools are available to support this process, both paid and free-to-use, depending on whether you are on the starter or the pro plan.
• Ensure everyone is using the same build and deploy process, this removes the subtle differences that can be introduced by using different processes. Helping to further standardise your installation, making it easier to investigate issues should they arise.
• Anything that changes on a per-environment basis should be a configuration variable, well documented, and stored outside of source control. This reduces the risk that sensitive information such as usernames and passwords aren’t leaked.
• Ensure all work for the fix/feature is contained within a single branch.
• Add new extensions, integrations, and code in isolated development environments, never on production. Ensure that each environment is rigorously tested before deploying to production. Development environments should be kept as close as possible to production to give you the best chance of spotting potential issues before deployment. For your site to work effectively and securely with the best user experience, it is essential that your Magento build and deployment process is managed and performed correctly.

If you are in any doubt about how to go about this or would like to discuss your Magento deployment process with one of our experienced Magento professionals, please get in touch to discuss tailored support and hosting plan.

At MDOQ, we specialise in delivering efficient Magento hosting to allow your eCommerce business to maximise its impact and grow healthily, supported by a loyal customer base. MDOQ comes with an automated build and deploys process as standard, whatever the size and nature of your eCommerce business.

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