The Adobe Commerce Modern Implementation

The second session of Adobe Commerce's Partner Implementation Series, focused on planning a modern Adobe Commerce implementation, delivered crucial insights for developers, partners, and clients. Here's a breakdown of the most important topics and key takeaways from the discussion.

Discovery Phase: Setting the Foundation

The discovery phase is one of the most critical steps in Adobe Commerce implementation. It involves understanding the project’s goals, identifying necessary team roles, and gathering the technical and business requirements. This phase ensures that both the partner team (systems integrators) and the client are aligned on the project scope and expectations.

Key Roles in the Discovery Phase:

Technical Architects (from both the systems integrator and client sides) to ensure the solution's viability and efficiency.
Business Solution Architects to bridge technical and business aspects.
Performance Engineers to monitor system efficiency and scalability.
Project Managers to coordinate communication between both teams.
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from the client to provide industry-specific insights.

Tools and Services: Optimizing the Process

The session emphasized the importance of utilizing Adobe's services and tools to enhance the development process without altering the core PHP framework.

App Builder & API Mesh: App Builder allows partners to extend Adobe Commerce functionalities without modifying the core structure, using a serverless approach to deploy custom features.
Event-Based Architecture: Using events and external integrations like messaging apps (e.g., WhatsApp) for order fulfillment can simplify complex workflows, allowing for real-time updates without custom development.

Global Reference Architecture (GRA): A Scalable Framework

GRA is a flexible architecture pattern that allows brands to reuse components across different regions or business units. Whether you are handling multi-brand or multi-country projects, GRA enables streamlined deployments and better code management.

Benefits of GRA:

Reduces duplication of code across multiple projects.
Ensures consistency by sharing core modules and functionalities.
Supports independent deployments for regions or business units, allowing for faster time-to-market and reducing conflicts.

Catalog Service: Addressing Scalability Issues

A significant topic of the webinar was the Catalog Service, a game-changer for projects managing large-scale product data. For customers with millions of SKUs, this service optimizes catalog retrieval times and drastically improves indexing efficiency.

Key Features:

90% reduction in price indexing time.
Performance-oriented, supporting real-time product searches and updates.
Scalable to handle up to a billion SKUs, making it ideal for enterprises dealing with vast catalogs.

Edge Delivery Services: Performance-First Commerce

Edge Delivery Services ensures lightning-fast performance for your Adobe Commerce storefront. By rendering the site at the edge (closer to the user), these services guarantee near-instant page load times and exceptional Google Lighthouse scores.

Key Benefits:

Headless Frontend Framework: Works seamlessly with any frontend framework, including React.
Authoring Flexibility: Allows content creation through Adobe Experience Manager or document-based authoring for simplified workflows.
Performance Focus: Designed to deliver pages with near-100 Lighthouse scores, improving both user experience and SEO.

Best Practices and Final Thoughts

The session concluded with best practices for Adobe Commerce implementation:

Start with the most challenging features first to minimize delays.
Define clear roles and communication channels early on.
Make use of Adobe’s specialized services like App Builder, Catalog Service, and Edge Delivery Services for scalable, efficient solutions.

By following these guidelines and utilizing the tools Adobe provides, teams can ensure a successful, scalable, and future-proof Adobe Commerce implementation.