Uniform blog/Life after Sitecore migration
adam conn
Adam Conn
Posted on Nov 7, 2022

3 min read

Life after Sitecore migration

The writing is on the wall for Sitecore customers. Why? Because most brands that are on Sitecore use XM or XP, which are not built on a composable architecture. However, Sitecore sees the future as composable and just announced that it will release only one more version of XM and XP. 
As a result, brands have a decision to make. Following Sitecore into the future requires replatforming to Sitecore XM Cloud, in addition to possible license changes. This amounts to spending a lot of time, energy and money just to end up at exactly where they already are with Sitecore XM or XP. Even the most satisfied Sitecore customers should be, at the very least, considering their options. This post explains how Uniform can help brands that want to move off of Sitecore XM or XP and to embrace a composable future.

Sitecore migration

Whether you are considering a move off of Sitecore because you are unhappy with the platform or want to avoid replatforming, remember that your Sitecore implementation, which likely has taken years to build, won’t simply disappear. Sitecore will remain a viable organization for a while yet. 
Uniform helps brands continue to get value from Sitecore while allowing brands to continue using Sitecore as long as they like, and throughout the migration process.

The prerequisites and Uniform’s helping hand

Before moving to a new CMS, you must first figure out the following:
  • What to do with the content in the old CMS. Since the Sitecore content model is often a mix of stable and volatile content, there is no easy way to move that out of Sitecore. No worries, however; Uniform is a handy solution with which you can conveniently accomplish two major tasks:
    • Incorporate content from Sitecore into sites and other digital experiences without moving that content elsewhere. You have plenty of breathing room to plan out what to do with it in the long run.
    • Extract and bring content from Sitecore to the new CMS. Doing that goes far beyond the one-to-one mapping capability of traditional migration tools, essentially enabling your Sitecore developers to migrate and build content with the Sitecore APIs they are familiar with.
  • Whether to redesign your site. Brands often see moving to a new CMS as an opportunity to redesign their site, but that’s not a must if you’re happy with the current design. A prudent game plan might be to focus on one project at a time, and moving to a new CMS is a big project. Regardless of your decision, keep in mind that all the instructions for connecting content with the design is stored in Sitecore. With Uniform, you can extract and map those instructions to a new front end, focusing on migrating content only, not those presentation instructions, and significantly reducing the scope and complexity of the migration process. 
  • How to preserve autonomy and control for your business users. Moving to a headless CMS, which offers the features for business users to manage content but not the ones with which to build pages and other digital experiences, results in a loss of autonomy and control for those users. Uniform brings back those missing capabilities so that business users can do their job fast regardless of where the content lives. In the case of Sitecore, for example, business users are free to use content stored in Sitecore, switch over to new content sources when they become available, and seamlessly work with multiple content sources.

Flexible and convenient migrations

As described above, by leveraging Uniform, brands can continue to capitalize on their existing Sitecore investment as they plan and implement a migration from Sitecore XM or XP. That way, brands not only reduce their dependence on Sitecore, but also ensure that their business users have replacements for the capabilities those users are used to but are unavailable in headless CMSes. 
For all that moving off a platform is never easy, Uniform offers the most convenient and simplest path from Sitecore to a composable future. Contact us for a head start on that journey.

References on Sitecore