Why Is It Important to Upgrade to Optimizely CMS 12, Commerce 14, and .NET 6?

A new year means new projects and marketing strategies, but how do you want to improve your key systems in 2023? We’ve put together this overview to help every Optimizely CMS/DXP user think about the precious aspects.  

Released in November 2021, .NET 6 marks the latest update in the .NET Core product line. .NET 5 is faster and performs better than the older ASP .NET 4 stack version. Also, Microsoft no longer supports older framework versions, including security enhancements. 

Source: Microsoft

February 2022, Optimizely released version 12.4.0 CMS Core packages (Minor version release), with no breaking changes in APIs. You’re contemplating the pros and cons of updating your website to Optimizely Content Cloud (CMS) Version 12 and Commerce Cloud Version 14.

According to a Forrester study, a composite business experienced a 286% return on investment (ROI) and $1.5 million in savings over three years, owing to higher developer productivity and enhanced site performance on Optimizely DXP.

Why are we talking about upgrading?

Optimizely DXP is currently built on Microsoft’s .Net framework, which Microsoft is phasing out with the release of .Net 6. Built upon Microsoft’s .NET Core branch of .NET, .Net 6 represents a complete rewrite of the platform without technical debt, focusing on performance modernization and cross-platform support.

All products built on the .Net framework must migrate eventually – Microsoft will no longer invest in research and development in previous versions, creating risk and performance issues over time for those who don’t migrate.

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As a Leader in 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms Report, Optimizely stays at the forefront of technical innovation to offer customers the most powerful digital experience platform.

The newest releases of both Optimizely CMS V12 and Commerce Cloud V14 include a core code update to .Net 6 to continue leveraging Microsoft’s modern architecture and maximize this important technical partnership.

Prerequisites for Upgrade: Upgrading Optimizely CMS 11 To 12 and Commerce 13 To 14

Continuing to streamline and evolve many digital innovation products, ensure your solution is ready to upgrade.

1. Additional development environment from Optimizely DXP.
2. Integration and preproduction environment.
3. DXC Service environment upgrade support from Optimizely DXP
4. Optimizely hosts CMS 12 websites in Linux environment which has lot of performance and optimizations over legacy Windows box.
5. Audit trails and compatibility study of your application DLLs .NET 6 support, its backward compatibility, CMS, and commerce supported versions and trade-offs.

Advantages of Optimizely CMS 12 and Commerce 14

So, the performance of .NET 6 is better than that of its predecessors, and it is not surprising that the CMS upgrade also brings significant performance increases. Optimizely predicts 4x quicker response times! Yes, it’s become a bit of a cliche in the web development industry, but who wouldn’t utilize such performance advantages as a key selling point?

1. NET 5, .NET 6 performance are impressively fast
2. 4X better response time
3. 5X faster site and commerce operation
4. 3X more server request handling

Commerce version 14 has a new admin interface for commerce manager, and CMS version 12 has headless styles deployments support. This customizable feature for headless deployment allows you to integrate your Optimizely CMS 12 website with numerous applications such as ecommerce, translations connector, and more. REST APIs were built to facilitate compatibility between applications built in a different technology than ASP.NET. This means code can be written once for various uses and applications, making it a flexible, efficient, and effective solution.

You can move your legacy front-end presentation layer to native Optimizely SDK (React SDK, VueJS SDK, ASP.NET SDK) for headless implementation. This will help make the front end fast, new feature implementation, and seamless rollouts.

1. Microsoft is no longer investing in the ASP.NET 4 stack
2. .NET 5 stack! .NET 6 performance are impressively fast
3. CMS 12, and Commerce 14 have new features, commerce manager and headless deployments support

The effort involved with upgrading one or more Optimizely websites will depend on the number of customized features, integrations, plugins, and experience of the developers.

So, what’s your next step then?

Notes:

1. https://www.optimizely.com/insights/forrester-tei-experimentation/
2. https://www.optimizely.com/insights/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=PP-GL-22-02-GartnerMQDXPPartner-3520&utm_content=Whereoware
3. https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/content-cloud/v12.0.0-content-cloud/docs/why-upgrade-to-content-cloud-cms-12
4. https://world.optimizely.com/documentation/developer-guides/archive/-net-core-preview/upgrading-commerce-14/breaking-changes-commerce-14/