Secure your digital future – why migrating from Episerver to Optimizely is essential?

Choosing the right Content Management System (CMS) is crucial for the success of any business. Episerver, a choice for many companies over the years, provided a content management platform and tools for creating engaging digital experiences.

When support for Episerver ended, companies faced the challenge of migrating to a new solution - Optimizely. This change implied the need for technological adaptation and an opportunity to rethink and enhance digital strategy.

About EPIserver

The History and Development of Episerver. Founded in 1994 in Sweden, Episerver gained recognition as one of the market’s most innovative and reliable CMSs. Its development witnessed many groundbreaking moments, including introducing features like e-commerce, content personalization, and marketing automation.

Episerver met the demands of the growing digital market and actively shaped the future of digital content management, offering solutions tailored to the needs of large corporations and small businesses.

Transition to Optimizely

The announcement of the end of support for Episerver and the transition to Optimizely marks a significant moment in content management evolution. This change, going beyond a simple name update, signals a shift to a more advanced and comprehensive solution capable of meeting the growing and evolving demands of the digital market.

New opportunities with Optimizely

Optimizely introduces a range of innovations and improvements aimed at facilitating content management and enabling the creation of more engaging and personalized user experiences. Some of these include:

• Advanced personalization - Optimizely emphasizes content personalization, enabling the creation of more individualized and targeted experiences for different audience segments. Thanks to user data and artificial intelligence, the platform allows for real-time content customization, which increases engagement and conversion.
   
• Integration and flexibility - Optimizely offers better integration with other tools and platforms, which is crucial for companies using diverse systems and applications. Its integration flexibility allows for more coherent and efficient content and digital experience management.
   
• Scalability and performance - for companies with extensive reach and complex needs, Optimizely offers scalability and performance. The platform is designed to meet growing demands while ensuring stability and operational speed.

Why is migration crucial?

Maintaining a CMS without ongoing support and security updates is risky. The end of support for Episerver means that the manufacturer will no longer fix any newly discovered security vulnerabilities, bugs, or weaknesses. This creates a real threat to data integrity and operational security.

Cyber attacks, such as system breaches, data leaks, or ransomware attacks, can have catastrophic consequences, including financial losses, reputational damage, and loss of customer trust.

Migrating to Optimizely is not just about adapting to new technological trends but primarily a preventive measure to protect against digital threats. As a continuously supported and updated platform, Optimizely offers advanced solutions in digital security.

Switching to Optimizely ensures access to ongoing technical support and regular updates.

This support includes technical assistance and access to the latest features, security tools, and patches, which are crucial in a dynamically changing digital environment.

Impact on Episerver users

The decision to migrate from EpisertowardOptimizely may seem complicated, but it is an essential step toward digital development and maintaining security. What does this change mean for current Episerver users? Here are a few aspects to consider when deciding to embark on the migration process:

1. Investment of time and financial resources
   Migrating to a new system requires both time and financial resources. It is a process similar to moving to a new office, where planning of space, resources, and logistics is necessary. Similarly, in migrating to Optimizely, companies must prepare for a possible budget allocation for new tools, licenses (if necessary), and specialist support to assist in the transition.
    
2. Data and content transfer
   A key element of migration is the transfer of data and content. This requires careful planning and management to ensure that all the relevant information is safely transferred. It is a process that requires accuracy to guarantee that no valuable data is lost.
    
3. Training and team adaptation
   Transitioning to a new platform requires proper preparation of the team. Training is essential for employees to use the new features and tools that Optimizely offers. A crucial stage to ensure the team can achieve business goals using the new system.

Transitioning to the Optimizely platform may seem like a significant change, but, in practice, the backend interface has largely remained unchanged. Despite the introduction of new technologies, users of the Episerver platform will experience a familiar working environment. This allows existing users to quickly adapt to the new system without extensive training or complicated implementation processes. This essential stage ensures the business goals are achieved.

Migration Process

The migration process from Episerver to Optimizely requires careful planning and execution. Key stages include:

1. Detailed analysis - before starting migration, it is imperative to thoroughly understand the current architecture, dependencies, and nuances of content in Episerver. This requires reviewing the code, the content structure, and the integrated tools or plugins.
2. Data preparation and cleansing - data must be transferred and transformed to fit new structures and formats in Optimizely. This may include converting content types, updating links, and metadata.
3. Testing and validation - testing is crucial to ensure that all system elements function correctly after migration. This should include functional tests, performance tests, and security tests.
4. Migration - the migration process must be controlled, allowing for quick restoration to the previous state in case of unexpected issues.
5. Implementation and optimization - after the migration is concluded, it is critical to monitor the system, gather user feedback, and continuously adjust the platform to changing needs.
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Case study of migration for a long-term Client

In our collaboration with one of our key clients, we had the opportunity to conduct an advanced migration from Episerver 11 CMS to the latest version of Optimizely. This case is an excellent example of leveraging new technological capabilities in the context of digital content management.

Technological Background and Reasons for Migration

• ASP.NET 4 vs ASP.NET Core Platform: Episerver 11 was built on the ASP.NET 4 platform, which, while simple and easy to use, began to show its limitations. Optimizely, built on the more modern ASP.NET Core, offers significantly better performance and flexibility. The transition to ASP.NET Core was crucial, considering that Microsoft stopped supporting ASP.NET 4.
   
• .NET 5 Performance: One of the main reasons for migration was the significant performance improvement offered by .NET 5, which is particularly important in the context of large, dynamic websites and applications.
   
• Ecosystem and Integrations: The new platform provides improved security and performance. Additionally, it enables better integration with other systems and tools, which is essential for complex digital ecosystems.

Migration Process

1. Analysis and Cleansing: We started identifying outdated elements in the old system. Based on this, we developed a list of components to be removed, updated, or added.
2. Process Division: The entire migration process was divided into stages – preparation and cleansing in the older version, followed by the actual update.
3. Testing and Integration: After migration, we conducted intensive functionality tests of Optimizely and integration with external systems, such as online payments and CRM.

After the implementation, completing the tests, and the client acceptance, we installed the new version on the production server. This edition of Optimizely significantly improved performance and opened new possibilities in content management and online experiences.

This migration increased system efficiency and performance and paved the way for further innovations and digital development for our client. It shows how important it is to adapt to new technologies in the dynamically changing world of digital content management.

Summary

Migrating from Episerver to Optimizely is an essential step toward modernizing digital content management and ensuring data security. The discontinuation of support for Episerver necessitates this migration.

It improves operational security through continuous updates and technical support and empowers companies to leverage new Optimizely capabilities, including advanced personalization and better system integration. This migration is crucial for protecting against digital threats and developing a robust digital strategy.