As technologies evolve at a rapid pace, keeping your website in sync with various modern trends is crucial to stay ahead in the digital landscape. One vital aspect of maintaining a robust and secure online presence is ensuring that your Content Management System (CMS) is running on the latest version. In the case of Sitecore, a leading CMS platform, upgrading to the latest instance of Sitecore, offers a range of benefits that can significantly improve your website's security, performance, and functionality.

Some of the key facets that every upgrade helps enhance are:

• Security: Upgrading to the latest Sitecore version ensures that you have the most up-to-date security patches and fixes. As cyber threats evolve and increase in frequency, CMS providers like Sitecore continuously release security updates to address vulnerabilities and protect your website from potential attacks. By upgrading, you can strengthen your website's security and reduce the risk of data breaches or unauthorized access.


• Stability and Bug Fixes: CMS upgrades often come with bug fixes and stability improvements. Older versions of Sitecore may have known issues or software bugs that can affect the performance, functionality, or user experience of your website. Upgrading to the latest version helps resolve these issues, providing a more stable and reliable CMS environment.


• Performance Enhancements: Sitecore upgrades often include performance optimizations that can improve the speed and efficiency of your website. These enhancements may include optimized database queries, improved caching mechanisms, or streamlined code execution. By upgrading, you can enhance the overall performance of your website, leading to faster page load times and a better user experience.


• New Features and Functionality: Each Sitecore version release typically introduces new features, enhancements, and functionalities. By upgrading, you gain access to these new capabilities, which can help you deliver more engaging and personalized experiences to your website visitors. New features could include improved content editing tools, enhanced analytics and personalization capabilities, advanced marketing automation features, or support for emerging technologies.


• Long-term Support: Sitecore, like many CMS providers, has a support lifecycle for its different versions. Older versions eventually reach their end-of-life stage, meaning they will no longer receive official support, updates, or bug fixes from the vendor. By upgrading to the latest version, you ensure that you can receive ongoing support from Sitecore, access the latest documentation, and benefit from the community's knowledge and resources.

With Sitecore 10 upgrade we get a lot of feature enhancements and enablement for the IT and development teams as well as the marketers to allow rapid development.

For the IT and Development Team

• Reduce the cost of future upgrades, the new 10.x upgrade approach helps cut the time to upgrade dramatically.


• Focus on making development progress vs spending time on environment fixes and eliminate the “it works on my machine” problem with immutable templatized infrastructure using containers on Azure Cloud.


• Remove lengthy local environment fixes with instant creations of new local environments with containers on Docker.


• Allow developers to work with the tools of their choice and improve productivity with Sitecore headless development options.


• Reduce deployment cycles with a new fully automated DevOps pipeline based on containers.


• Remove third-party dependencies, stay in lockstep with Sitecore supported features, get Sitecore support for issues with components, and empower content authors and marketers to be fully self-sufficient with the Sitecore Experience Accelerator.


• Attract the best talent and retain the existing one by enabling developers to work with the latest frameworks and technologies (React, Angular, Vue, .Net Core, containers).


• Remove the dependency on Sitecore for frontend developers and remove about 50% of backend development effort with Sitecore JSS (headless development).


• Removed dependency on IT for deployments with automated zero-downtime DevOps deployment pipeline.


• Simplify maintenance of content-related DevOps with the new Sitecore Content Serialization framework using a CLI.


• Increase security and resilience with AKS automated recovery features.


• Optimize infrastructure cost with automated resource scaling with AKS, with 40% cost savings on hosting going from Azure PaaS to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).


• Automate environment creation and setup with Infrastructure as Code approach and containers.


• Remove the overhead of manually maintaining the infrastructure with Azure Cloud-managed systems.


• Simplify disaster recovery with immutable containerized environment images.


• Automate Sitecore patching and minor version upgrades via the new DevOps pipeline with tagging and containerization.

Benefits for Marketers and Content Authors

• Activate auto-personalization with Sitecore AI.


• Reduce the amount of personalization experimentation by using automated segmentation and personalization recommendations from Sitecore Cortex.


• Drive new page-based insights for more accurate decisions and deeper traffic analysis using the new WYSIWYG editor, Horizon.


• Act on customer interactions faster with automation and near-real-time Salesforce updates with personalization and marketing automation.


• Develop a higher level of digital engagement with the new Sitecore XP Marketing Automation tool and an extended list of personalization rules.


• Personalize based on user location and device out of the box.


• Get new features released faster with the new agile containerized DevOps pipeline.


• Get more insights about website user behavior with improved reporting in Experience Analytics and Path Analyzer.


• Create a better-personalized experience by using data from external sources through the Sitecore Universal Tracker.


• Make content updates up to 80% faster with support for Experience Editor and Horizon and the drag-and-drop functionality of the SXA Toolbox.


• Impersonate various target audiences to view the impact of content updates immediately with Experience Explorer.


• Make content updates on the go with the mobile support for editing in Horizon.


• Become self-sufficient in making content and styling updates without the involvement of developers or IT (cut updates to minutes and hours vs days).


• Empower skilled authors to modify the presentation of components allowing them to change the HTML and publish changes without having to touch code (cut updates to minutes and hours vs days).


• Get new content authoring features and tools faster by staying aligned with the Sitecore roadmap using the SXA.

The Path to Sitecore XP 10.0: Upgrade Vs Migrate from Scratch

The decision to upgrade from your current version (or even another web content management platform altogether) to Sitecore XP 10.0 isn’t always the same. If you’re moving from Sitecore XP 8.1 or higher, you can upgrade to Sitecore 10.0 directly. But if you’re moving from a lower version, there are other paths:

• If you are on 6.6, 7.2, 7.5, or 8.0, you could start with a clean Sitecore XP 9 install and migrate your content using the Express Migration Tool. You can then upgrade directly to XP 10 from XP 9.


• If you are on 6.5 or lower, 7.0, or 7.1, you can run through each upgrade version to one supported by the Express Migration Tool. Then upgrade directly to XP 10 from XP 9.

Conclusion

Any upgrade to Sitecore XP 10 is more than just a simple technical decision. An upgrade provides organizations with a great opportunity to revisit their content strategy and clean up outdated or ineffective content in their CMS, which would directly lead to an improved customer experience.

It is also the perfect time to re-evaluate the marketing strategy in place and potentially develop new plans that enable the creation and delivery of unified and contextual customer experiences that can result in long-term customer relationships and thereby create meaningful growth. If you are looking to upgrade your CMS or are intending to migrate to a different platform, reach out to us, and our team of certified Sitecore experts would guide you toward an effective upgrade and implementation.