Certified Magento Developers: From 1 hour to 1,000+ We’re here to help. And to make it easy. (And to make sure the code works)
	But don’t take our word for it. Our developers know Magento’s 150,000 lines of code inside and out, and have been tested directly by Magento and certified to work on Magento Websites.

Why Upgrade Magento from 1.6 to 1.9?

Magento has approximately 150,000 lines of code, and has been worked on by hundreds of developers. For the most part, it’s very secure and bug-free, but with over 100,000 merchants using Magento commerce, issues do come up between releases.

• Magento 1.6.1.0 was released on October 19, 2011.
• Magento 1.7.0.0 was released during the Magento Imagine conference on April 24, 2012.
• Magento 1.9.0.0 was released during the Magento Imagine conference in Las Vegas, NV in April 2014.

The major reasons to upgrade from Magento 1.6 or 1.7 to 1.9 are:

• Magento 1.9 has a responsive framework, built-in to the base themes.  This makes installing a responsive site much, much easier.
• Magento 1.9 has many, many updated features, including better shipping API systems.
• Critical Security vulnerability in Zend framework (this can also be patched, too). This vulnerability could allow someone to take full control over your Magento commerce site.
  
• Over 550 stability and functionality bug fixes
  
• Shipping issues with USPS, UPS, DHL and Fedex
  
• PayPal issues, including better customer address handling for PayPal Express checkout users, tax issues not re-calculating properly on PayPal Express,
  
• Fixed the “Saving Product” issue that was taking too long for many admin Magento users to save a product.

New Functionality Included in Magento 1.9 (Upgraded from Magento 1.6, 1.7 or 1.8):

In addition, there is new quite a bit of new functionality included in Magento 1.7:

• Responsive Theme – built in as the default theme.
• Better MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) integration
• Auto-generated coupon codes
• A different base price per customer group.
• A redesigned mobile theme (for iPhone and other mobile devices) for Magento 1.7
• Compliance with EU cookie law – Cookie Restriction.
• New Cash on Delivery and Bank Transfer payment options for end users.
• New support for Memchached PHP extension (this helps speed up your site).
• Ability to customize your logo in Magento transactional emails from the Magento 1.7 admin panel.
• A new drag-and-drop javascript library was upgraded
• In all, there were 563 changes, improvements and bug fixes made to the Magento Community 1.7 code base that improve functionality, security and scalability from the 1.6 release.

Magento Upgrade Process from 1.6 to 1.9:

If you’d like to upgrade your Magento site from version 1.6 to version 1.9 (or would like us to help), here are the basic steps you should take to complete the upgrade:

1. Backup your site and your database.
We recommend having a full site backup of all of your Magento 1.6 storefront files, including a full snapshot of the database and all images.

For best results, you should have a local copy (i.e. on your hard drive), burn a DVD or two, and also have a copy at another physical location (i.e. on a development or test server, hosted at a different geographic location).

Here’s the SSH command to back up your site from the command line (don’t do this if you don’t know what you’re doing). You should make sure your server has enough disk space to handle this:

cd /home/myaccount/magento
tar -zcvf ../20120430-magento-backup.tar.gz * .htaccess
cd ..
mysqldump -h DBHOST -u DBUSER -p –single-transaction DBNAME > 20120430-magento-data.sql && tar -zcvf 20120430-magento-data.tar.gz 20120430-magento-data.sql
rm -rf ./20120430-magento-data.sql

2. Do a Magento code audit, to make sure that your site is ready for the upgrade. We offer a $99 Magento Code Audit that allows you to know your exact current version of the Magento system (i.e. 1.6.0.1), what core files have been modified, what extensions have been installed, as well as other more techy-details.

Core File Changes / Modifications:
If you worked with a Magento Developer who was just learning Magento and didn’t go through the time and effort to make modules / extensions / plugins for your Magento commerce 1.6 website, and instead just modified the core Magento files… if you upgrade you may lose much of the functionality of your existing site that was contained in those files.

3. Before you do the upgrade on your Magento 1.6 storefront, we highly, highly recommend doing the upgrade on a test or development server. That way you can sort through any of the issues that might come up with the database conversion, file modifications, and/or extensions that don’t work properly.

4. Once the upgrade works on your development server, put your system into maintenance mode. One trick from Magento’s system is to just edit the page here: [/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default] and point it to a custom HTML file that says your site is currently down for an upgrade.

We recommend picking a time that you can upgrade the site where it will not impact a large number of customers. However, doing an upgrade in the middle of the night means that your developers and team are sleep-deprived and not always able to make clear decisions or fix things quickly. We recommend doing upgrades early in the morning, so that you have the entire day to troubleshoot and examine issues. We recommend against doing an upgrade on a Friday, unless your development team is ready to work the entire weekend if minor issues arise.

5. Test, Test and More Testing.

When we do an upgrade for Magento (especially between versions such as 1.6 to 1.9), it’s critical to test. We have a 62-point checklist that we use to check the functionality of the site, including:

• Internal Search
• Product Page Layout
• Pricing Integrity
• Discount Code Functionality
• Checkout Process
• Payment Gateway Process
• Ability for past customers to log in easily
• Wishlist functionality
  … and much more.

You should be prepared to place live orders on the site, using a valid credit card and a PayPal account, and do this from several different browsers.

Three Ways to Upgrade Magento from 1.6 to 1.9:

There are three main ways to Upgrade a Magento site from 1.6 to 1.9:

1. 1. Use the procedure described above, via Magento Connect Manager.
2. 2. Copy all of the new site files and replace the older ones in the core file directories, and re-run the install.php script for Magento commerce’s community edition.
3. 3. Create a completely new installation of Magento 1.7, and re-apply the design files, extensions, and migrate the database.

Or, have Customer Paradigm do the Mageto 1.6-1.9 upgrade for you, and let us take care of this quickly and easily.

Why Customer Paradigm is different for Magento Upgrades:

Some of Customer Paradigm’s Work:

	3M Sustainability Site Website for 3M’s Sustainability Department, aligned with 3M’s corporate Web standards. View Larger Image >>
	Energy Classroom by Xcel Energy Microsite for Xcel Energy, the 4th largest power company in the United States, teaching energy conservation for teachers, students and other constituencies. View Larger Image >>
	Travelocity Accessories Shop by Mizco Travelocity is a leader in online travel and for the last sixteen years has guided travelers to affordable and convenient flights, hotels, vacation packages cruises and car rentals.. Their partner, Mizco International, Inc. (“we”, “us”) came to Customer Paradigm wanting to create a eCommerce travel accessory shop with full functionality from search features to payment methods. The site, which is owned and operated by Mizco under license from Travelocity, LLC (“Travelocity”) continues to provide thousands of savings to travelers all over the world. View Larger Image >>
	AAMCO Colorado Search Engine Optimization, Cost Per Click Marketing, Website Development for all Colorado-based AAMCO dealers to drive targeted leads for auto repair. View Larger Image >>
	Up With People Website development for Up With People, a global education organization that aims to bring the world together through service and music. View Larger Image >>
	Citrix Mobile Website development, Trade Show Marketing for leading company in GoToMeeting – Web Conferencing space. View Larger Image >>
	San Francisco Soup Company Website Development, Mobile Application System, Daily Soup Email Marketing System for San Francisco-based fast casual restaurant. View Larger Image >>
	Fresh Produce Clothing Magento Enterprise eCommerce Development, Custom Application Development for clothing retailer, using the Magento Commerce platform. View Larger Image >>
	San Francisco Main Freight Custom Application Development for world-wide logistics company. Customer Paradigm has built a system that tracks more than $100 million of products, including where items are located in each warehouse and when items are shipped, returned or damaged.
	Warner Music Group Magento Enterprise Commerce development for custom extension for Warner Music Group Websites. View Larger Image >>
	Adventure Rabbi Website Development, Photography, Online Marketing for outdoor religious organization. SEO efforts led to coverage by CNN, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, CBS News and more. View Larger Image >>
	Red Apple Lipstick Magento Website development and programming for leading retailer of gluten-free lipstick and cosmetic products, using Magento Community edition. View Larger Image >>

Other Magento Services:

• Magento Developers
  Improve your rankings in Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines and drive more traffic to your WordPress website. . . .  learn more
• Magento Upgrades
  New features, security updates and peace of mind are all excellent reasons to upgrade your current Magento installation. . . .  learn more
• User-Friendly Magento Design
  We provide a wide range of design services from making banner advertisements to completely redesigning entire websites. . . . 
  learn more
• Immediate Magento Support
  We offer a variety of services and solutions for Magento stores big and small to ensure that your site stays up and running. . . .  learn more

h2>More On Internet Marketing with Customer Paradigm

What are some of the things we do to help you get better rankings, more traffic, and more sales?

• Cost per click/cost per impression advertising
• Email marketing
• Website development and copywriting for SEO
• Inbound marketing
• Social media marketing
• Conversion rate optimization
• Local search optimization

We would love to talk to you about your online marketing goals. Please give us a call at 303-473-4400 or contact us to speak with a real person now.

About Customer Paradigm

Customer Paradigm is a full-service interactive
media firm, helping businesses acquire, retain and
interact with our customers.

We specialize in Magento Developers. Our team of Magento Developers know Magento inside and out. Customer Paradigm has clients throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. Our customer-centric approach allows us to internalize our client’s vision for their organization and design websites and print marketing that gets results.

Our Magento Developers also work closely with our team members who focus on search engine optimization (SEO), search engine advertising (CPC) and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). Our open-office, team-approach makes sure that we take an integrated approach to your project. Nobody is programming in the dark… we’re always looking out for other factors including how the customization will affect SEO, social media and CPC campaigns.

Our work includes Website development for 3M, microsites for Xcel Energy and marketing campaigns for the Four Seasons, BP, Shell Global Solutions and Genetech.

From continuing medical education courses and e-newsletters for Johns’ Hopkins University, to trade show marketing / mini-CRM systems for Genetech, to secure remote imaging software and website development for the Greeley Medical center, we understand the specific challenges and opportunities faced by a wide variety of industries.

We’ve done privacy consulting work for Merck, McGraw Hill, Lillian Vernon, and Starwood Hotels. We understand the challenges a regulated industry faces when it comes to the collection, use, storage and access to sensitive, personally-identifiable information on their websites across the U.S. and abroad.

We’ve built eCommerce systems for Travelocity, helped AAMCO Colorado achieve top search engine optimization results, and created microsites for Go To Meeting’s Citrix. Clothing retailer Fresh Produce relies on Customer Paradigm for custom Magento eCommerce programming. The San Francisco Soup Company leverages Customer Paradigm’s cross platform expertise in an integrated mobile optimized system and daily email marketing campaigns.

Our Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts helped news organizations find local religious leader, Rabbi Jamie Korngold and cover her program in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, AP, Ski Magazine, CBS News and more. This intense media interest sparked a book offer from Doubleday Religion, who published Rabbi Korngold’s first best-selling book, God in the Wilderness (www.GodintheWilderness.com).

In the sustainability realm, Pfizer, 3M and Intel are the first users of a manufacturer-based sustainable development software planning tool we’ve developed for the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) organization. We’ve also recently redesigned the sustainability section of the 3M Website site for 3M.

Customer Paradigm was named the 2009 Supplier of the Year Rocky Mountain Direct Marketing Association. Customer Paradigm’s founder, Jeff Finkelstein, has been called a “Web Guru” by New York Times Magazine.