Upgrade Your CMS: Umbraco or Optimizely

There’s no simple way to put it: upgrading your CMS takes time. There’s a lot of preparation. There’s always a handful of unknowns. And, there’s the eventual learning curve of understanding the new version.

With both Umbraco 9 and Optimizely 12 fresh on our minds, we asked our lead development team — Optimizely developers Steph Sommers and Chris Wahl and Umbraco developer Chase Burandt — about their experiences in handling large major version upgrades.

What makes the upgrade to Optimizely 12 and Umbraco 9 so different from regular upgrades? 

Chris: It’s significantly more complex than any other upgrade because we are upgrading from .net to .net core. So it involves fixing and rewriting a bunch of stuff. Which on top of the actual work to fix and rewrite, introduces a lot of bugs.

Chase: Umbraco 9+ is on Net5+ (.net Core) and requires a completely different project structure. So, the Umbraco 8 site can’t be directly upgraded to Umbraco 9+ without a new database. Migrating content is also different based on the different types of data. For example, if your Umbraco 8 project has Umbraco Forms, those files will need to be migrated to the database.

Steph: The underlying framework was replaced from Opti 11 to Opti 12, so as developers, we have to go through each file in the existing codebase and upgrade the code to the new framework. While the upgrade is a lot of manual work, the upgrade path for most things is pretty straightforward. There are some instances where a package has not been upgraded, so we have to determine whether we can find a suitable replacement or if we need to write new code to accomplish what the old package was doing.

What is one of your biggest takeaways from completing this upgrade? 

Steph: An upgrade is not the time to make changes to the functionality of the site, such as major feature enhancements. It’s best to focus on the upgrade. Upgrading to CMS 12 usually comes with performance improvements.

Chris: My biggest takeaway is that Optimizely 12 is way better to work on than Optimizely 11. In Optimizely 12, it’s a lot easier to look at the configuration files and digest the information in them, whereas in Opti 11, we had giant configuration files with a lot of generated information that we didn’t need. Now, we have small JSON files that have information that we add. It also is a great opportunity to refactor old functionality.

Chase: After upgrading to version 9, there’s a noticeable performance increase and using the new industry standards. The site is a lot faster using the new .NET Core instead of the .Net framework. 

How should editor teams prepare for an upgrade like this? 

Steph: As stated in the previous question, it’s best to put a hold on major feature work. For starters, it’s harder to keep track of the new code because we end up maintaining two codebases while the upgrade is in progress. Secondly, if the feature work is only a part of the upgrade, it’s hard to know during testing what the expected functionality is. From a content standpoint, most things come over automatically, and in a DXP setup, content can be synced as many times as needed until launch.

Chris: Editor teams don’t need to do much to prepare for the upgrade. However, the editor experience after this upgrade will require new training and learning because of the new features that are implemented.

Chase: The editor team has little to prepare for except for some changes to the CMS. 

We’re ready to help.

As each major version of Umbraco and Optimizely is released, Blend’s development team gets to work helping clients maintain and lengthen the life of their websites, capturing even more value for their long-term investment.

Does your site need an upgrade? With experience comes speed and efficiency, and we’re ready to extend the life of your current website. Get a hold of us — we’re here to help.