9 key aspects of professional store maintenance on Magento 2 and other platforms

Why hosting alone is not enough in e-commerce

Among e-commerce systems, maintaining a store on Magento 2 is considered mature and very complex. However, the software itself and its development, in the programming sense, does not guarantee that our online store will be well secured in the event of a failure, will run quickly, and will be embedded in an infrastructure suitable for effective development.

Over the years of working on our own stores and those of our clients, we have developed a set of standards that guarantee the above aspects. By taking over existing online distribution channels, we have found that it is possible to be really far removed from them, so we decided to share some key tips.

Below you will find 9 points that should serve as a checklist to work through with those responsible for maintaining and developing your store on Magento 2 and other platforms. We hope that it will help you identify gaps and support you in building a backlog that will better secure your business or make your store more comfortable for your customers to use.

1. Optimization of applications supporting the Magento 2 engine

Although Magento 2 is the brain behind the entire operation of an online store, it cannot function without supporting applications. In addition to the most basic one – the MySql database – we also have Elastic Search (mandatory for the last few versions), Redis, PHP, and optional elements such as Varnish and RabbitMQ. Each of these applications can contribute to speeding up or slowing down your website. What should you pay special attention to when maintaining your store? In my opinion, two systems require special attention:

• Elastic Search – a powerful tool that forms the foundation of the Magento search engine and catalog indexing. Its use is often expanded with additional modules. It enables effective work on the product catalog, but technically takes up a large part of the server's resources, because Java – the language on which Elastic is based – has its own maintenance specifics. Check the behavior of your Elastic, make sure there are no bottlenecks when Elastic "pushes" itself onto the server and takes up all the resources needed for the basic operation of essential applications. There may be various reasons for this behavior, and before you track down the problem in the code, you can limit unwanted behavior by closing Elastic.

• Varnish - Varnish Cache is another important, but optional, element of e-commerce infrastructure. It is a solution that allows you to speed up the operation of your online store after implementation, thereby improving the shopping experience for your customers. Thanks to this solution, we can speed up the loading of web pages by up to several dozen percent, which will certainly contribute to increasing conversion and improving sales results.

The main advantage of Varnish Cache is that it operates at an intermediate level between the server and the end user. Because it stores website content in cache memory, there is no need to download it from the server each time. This allows for a significant acceleration of the online store's operation while maintaining and increasing its performance. What's more, Varnish Cache is capable of handling a very large number of queries, making it an ideal solution for high-traffic online stores.

It is worth noting that Varnish Cache is compatible with Magento 2, which means that it can be easily integrated with this e-commerce platform during store maintenance, even in its open source version, without installing additional code. All you need is the right configuration at the infrastructure and application level.

2. Ensuring store continuity: auto-installers and disaster recovery

Have you ever asked yourself how long it would take to rebuild your website from scratch if, for example, the data center where your Magento 2 maintenance services are hosted burned down? This scenario is no longer unimaginable after a major failure caused by the OVH fire a few years ago

It is good practice to maintain auto-installers for your website. Technologies that can be used in this case include Ansible installers. In stressful emergency situations, it is good for the administrator not to have to remember what to do, but to be able to run an automatic script to recover the application. Such an auto-installer is also useful in everyday work during deployment or installation of additional test/stage environments.

It is also worth taking a moment to consider the disaster recovery process itself, i.e., the procedure for restoring normal system operation after a total or partial failure, the purpose of which is to minimize losses and downtime. In the event of a server failure or complete system crash, this process involves quickly restoring the system to its pre-failure state, enabling fast and effective operation. It includes, among other things, backup processes, emergency test planning, and the definition of recovery procedures in the event of a failure. This enables companies to counteract potential disasters and minimize their effects, which in the case of an online store is particularly important for maintaining business continuity and sustainability

3. Using Zabbix to monitor the server and applications of an online store

Zabbix is a popular and versatile monitoring system that can be used not only to monitor servers and applications, but also to monitor online stores and maintained e-commerce systems. Nowadays, customers expect online stores to operate quickly and smoothly, which is why monitoring the performance and availability of an online store has become essential for business owners. Zabbix is usually associated with its basic server monitoring functionalities, such as performance monitoring and failure alerts. This allows online store owners to monitor important technical aspects. However, the key aspect is whether the maintained website itself is working, not just whether the server is responding correctly to requests or whether the disk space has run out.

Meanwhile, Zabbix can also be used to monitor the application itself—the simplest form of implementation is to add so-called "triggers" for the availability of key pages of your website, which allows you to monitor whether the main pages of the store are displayed correctly to users. Such a detector checks whether the online store is working properly, whether there are any problems with loading pages, and whether users are experiencing any accessibility issues. 

4. Maintaining non-production environments and managing data security

Hosting and maintaining the so-called "production" (production environment) of Magento 2 is only half the battle in running an effective and reliable online business. In addition to this, additional environments are also important: test, stage, and local, which together enable testing and implementing changes in a safe and controlled manner.

These environments allow for independent development and testing of changes, as well as the secure implementation and testing of the entire Magento 2 version. A good environment is not only a functioning online store in the so-called "sandbox" mode, but also all integrations related to modules and functionalities in our e-commerce platform. However, having multiple environments also creates its own problems, including issues of personal data supervision.

Data security is crucial for every company, especially those that run online stores. One of the most important elements in data security management is the proper management of backups, which are used to restore data in the event of a system failure, but also to reproduce certain errors that occurred in the production environment after the implementation of Magento 2

Production backups often contain sensitive information, such as customer personal data or financial data, so secure storage and access only for authorized persons is critical to the effective operation of the business. To this end, every online store after implementing Magento 2 should have a database anonymizer that removes customer personal data and sensitive business data before making the database available for development.

5. Code performance monitoring

The use of additional application monitoring tools, such as New Relic or Blackfire, is another important element of effective e-commerce system management. Every new change added to our online store is not only an improvement and functionality, but also new code that must be executed on the server. Writing it in an effective way is just as important for the operation of the whole as the functionality that the code implements. There are ready-made applications for ongoing monitoring and developer support in this area.

• New Relic is an advanced application performance monitoring system that allows you to track user activity and detect and resolve application performance issues. This allows you to respond quickly to problems and provide users with the best online store experience. 

• Blackfire, on the other hand, is a code profiling tool that allows you to analyze application performance in real time and detect code performance issues. With Blackfire, you can optimize your code and effectively speed up your application. This tool is particularly useful for developers and those responsible for maintaining an online store.

6. Repository maintenance and change implementation process

Maintaining an e-commerce application after implementing Magento 2 is not only about managing servers and ongoing care for the store's operation. An equally important element is taking care of the code bases, which are the foundation of the entire system. Without their constant updating and verification, it is difficult to talk about the stability and security of the store. In our practice, there have been situations where, when taking over stores implemented on Magento, we did not have access to the code repository, but only to the files on the server. In such cases, a compliance audit and alignment with the official Magento/Adobe repository is necessary.

To make your work easier, it is worth using tools such as GitLab, which not only provide a place to store code, but also serve to automate processes. This enables, among other things, faster implementation of changes, easier teamwork, and continuous integration and implementation of changes in the code (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery). In addition, using such tools allows you to effectively control code versioning and manage access to the repository, which increases security and control over work processes.

7. Cloudflare as a tool supporting performance and security

Cloudflare is an interesting tool that offers many features for online platforms such as online stores and public B2B trading platforms. One of them is the Cloudflare Cache solution at the CDN (Content Delivery Network) level. It is an ideal solution for websites, especially those with a large number of users from different regions of the world.

Cloudflare Cache enables fast delivery of static resources such as images, style sheets, and scripts, reducing the load on the server. Significantly faster page loading times make users happier and less likely to abandon the website. What's more, Cloudflare Cache works not only for stores with Magento 2 implemented, but for many different web applications.

It is also worth noting that Cloudflare offers more than just Cache. Their platform offers solutions in the areas of security, content delivery acceleration, and protection against DDoS attacks. Cloudflare allows you to use these features in a simple and easy way, without the need for complicated configuration. 

8. Log monitoring and analysis: quick detection and resolution of problems

Nowadays, IT systems are developing at a pace that we could not have imagined just a few years ago. As a result, any element of the infrastructure can fail, and the complexity of the system architecture makes it difficult to find the cause of the problem. To solve these types of problems after implementation on Magento 2, you can use Sentry and/or Graylog.

Sentry is an open source tool that allows you to monitor web and mobile applications on an ongoing basis and respond to errors in real time. Sentry collects information about errors and is particularly useful for companies that have large code resources, as is often the case with Magento 2 implementations, where error detection is time-consuming and costly.

Another tool worth mentioning is Graylog. It is an open source tool that allows you to collect, process, and analyze logs from various sources. With Graylog, you can monitor applications, servers, network devices, and operating systems in real time. The tool allows for automatic failure detection and alerts about dangerous situations. With its search function, Graylog allows you to quickly and effectively search event logs and find the cause of problems. It is important to remember to anonymize logs!

9. Replica database

The last point concerns an element that is used by larger online stores, for which the online part is the main source of income – often it is not simply a cheap solution, but is referred to as optional. We are talking about a separate server containing copies of the database, in a technology called "slave", but we will use the less controversial equivalent "replica". As a side note, it is worth adding that there is a valid discussion in the industry about the need to change certain terms in the IT world, which from today's perspective may be inappropriate or offensive. 

A "replica" database is a type of database that is used as a secondary database in relation to the production database. Unlike the production database, which is the most important one, the secondary database is used for additional purposes, such as application testing, data analysis, reporting, etc., thus not burdening the production database with unnecessary queries.

Another important role of such a database is to maintain high service availability. In the event of a server failure with the production DB, the "replica" database can be used in the production role. To secure the database, it is not necessary to physically install several machines right away. You can use the services of cloud providers, such as the popular RDS within AWS, or their equivalents from other cloud providers.

Summary

The availability and responsiveness of an online store is a silent but crucial parameter influencing the success of an online business. The availability of the website measured in hours is only one component of the user experience that it influences. A store that is difficult to access discourages customers from shopping and does not motivate them to return to the site in the future. 

The stores that were intended to be as perfect as possible are exposed to the greatest dissonance in terms of user experience compared to what the sales platform was supposed to offer. Complex solutions, such as those based on Magento 2, require a standardized approach and well-developed back-end processes to ensure that implementations run smoothly and store availability can be maintained for as long as possible. 

The related topic of backups – the unsung heroes of everyday online sales – has become firmly established in the minds of e-commerce specialists and managers, forming the foundation of good practices. The same should apply to the choice of the right infrastructure and process solution after the implementation of Magento 2. It should be equally important so that periodic store unavailability or slow performance does not prevent customers from enjoying a product that has been refined at every other stage.