IBM Watson Commerce v9 has been released that gives organizations greater agility and flexibility to speedily innovate and to quickly adjust their go-to-market strategies and transform how they engage customers across channels. Unlike version 8, which came after 6 years gap, IBM has reduced the major release period this time.
What is even more important to note is that support for v7 (still most of the customers are running on) will end in April 2019 (End of Support). Nonetheless, extended support (separate contract) will be offered through till December 30th, 2021.
Customers on v7 therefore need to think about a migration project.
Customers on v7 therefore need to think about a migration project. We have covered phases of migration and the new features of IBM Watson Commerce v9 in the later sections. Royal Cyber shares its experience of how best to approach ecommerce implementations to help make sure you get it right.
Fast Track V9 Migration
New Features in Watson Commerce V9.0
Modular Architecture
IBM WebSphere Commerce V9 has a modular architecture, driving better scale with less overhead
READ MORE
Modular Architecture
- IBM WebSphere Commerce V9 has a modular architecture, driving better scale with less overhead
- Modularization simplifies platform management
- Scale the service that requires more performance versus scaling the entire platform
- Less dependency among teams and services allows for faster innovation
- Externalized Customizations (xC) is a big deal
- Separating extensions and customizations from the platform allows for quick upgrades, eliminating expensive testing cycles that significantly inhibit innovation
Microservices Approach
Modularize WebSphere Commerce into loosely coupled components called Microservices
READ MORE
Microservices Approach
- Modularize WebSphere Commerce into loosely coupled components called Microservices
- Separated the storage search from the larger heavier transactional server which allows for better scaling of eCommerce platform with reduced TCO from minimizing regression testing for the various releases to the actual infrastructure requirements to run the store.
- Upgrades can now be done in days. Think of something in the morning, and have it in front of your customers the same day.
Docker
The docker feature in WebSphere Commerce makes it easy to create, deploy and run applications
READ MORE
Docker
- The docker feature in WebSphere Commerce makes it easy to create, deploy and run applications
- It allows eCommerce professionals to package applications with all the parts it needs from the OS, libraries and dependencies and ship it out as one immutable package.
- More time innovating, less time maintaining the platform
AI for the Commerce Professional
Watson Commerce is your secret weapon in taking market share, right now
Phases of Migration
A migration project for any live WebSphere Commerce site is an activity that must be carefully thought out.
There are 03 Main Phases of the Migration Project
The Planning Phase
The Practice Phase
The Production Migration Phase
Planning Phase
In the planning phase, we take list of clients current WCS Assets, such as servers, software, documentation, databases and custom code. It is crucial to know which customizations client has, and where system integrates with external systems.
Practice Phase
The practice phase is divided into 02 or more parts, depending on clients business.
- Migrating the Development Environment
- Migrating the Test Environment
Production Migration Phase
The v9.0 migration offers a minimal downtime solution, so when we migrate your live environment to v9.0, you can continue to serve traffic.
The majority of the production migration takes place offline. In fact, the live database is the only tier from your production environment that gets migrated directly from one runtime environment to another. And that database migration can occur in parallel to serving traffic.
