Web Development Models

From the technology perspective, Microsoft is continually evolving their primary technology stack, they're moving from ASP.NET Web Forms to ASP.NET MVC (and ASP.NET Core MVC) which is the next evolutionary step for Microsoft technology.

Kentico Portal Engine runs on ASP.NET Web Forms. Web Forms is a technology not compatible with the new .NET Core framework, though. Therefore, everyone running on the Microsoft framework needs to switch to MVC, and, gradually, take the first step towards .NET Core MVC. In fact, soon, there will be no new features and add-ons running on Web Forms and the old Full Framework.

The biggest difference between the two frameworks is, therefore, in the way you develop projects from a developer perspective. However, the goal for Kentico and for business practitioners is to abstract technology differences away, and provide the best editing experience no matter what technology is running underneath.

Upgrade

All Kentico 12 (Service Pack) projects running on the Portal Engine model must transition to MVC in order to upgrade to Kentico Xperience 13. All Kentico 12 projects running on MVC can be upgraded to Kentico Xperience 13 and continue to run on MVC.

Upgrade

We recommend upgrading to the latest available version—i.e., from Kentico 11 Portal Engine to Kentico 12 (Service Pack) Portal Engine. MVC is the recommended approach and, therefore, customers should consider transitioning as soon as possible.

1.      If a site is currently at the end of its lifecycle and is about to be redesigned, the best approach is to create the new one based on MVC. During the redesign, most likely, some content will be reused, and so will OM and EC data, and some extensions, etc. The front end will probably be created from scratch.

2.      If a site will come to the end of its lifecycle in the following years (by 2021), the best approach may be to wait and redesign at that point.

3.      If the site is not going to come to the end of its lifecycle in the near feature and full support will still be required, the transition from Portal Engine to MVC must still be performed.

There is no tool to automatically convert Portal Engine front end to MVC front end because the two technologies are very different at an elementary level. It is subject to being validated on whether we can find a (partial) solution for certain customers.

Structured data independent of the development model (e.g., system configuration, online marketing, commerce data, ...) are upgraded automatically. Content created and stored on a Portal Engine based site (e.g., content stored in widgets/webparts, Portal Engine specific page types) won't be upgraded and needs to be migrated.

Transition to MVC

Existing customers running a Portal Engine project should consider transitioning to MVC at their earliest convenience.

We recommend upgrading to the latest available version—i.e., from Kentico 11 Portal Engine to Kentico 12 (Service Pack) Portal Engine. MVC is the recommended approach and, therefore, customers should consider transitioning as soon as possible.

1.      If a site is currently at the end of its lifecycle and is about to be redesigned, the best approach is to create the new one based on MVC. During the redesign, most likely, some content will be reused, and so will OM and EC data, and some extensions. etc. The front end will probably be created from scratch.

2.      If a site will come to the end of its lifecycle in the following years (by 2021), the best approach may be to wait and redesign at that point.

3.      If the site is not going to come to the end of its lifecycle in the near feature and full support will still be required, the transition from Portal Engine to MVC must still be performed.

Sunsetting PE

Customers that have recently invested into a Portal Engine based project should upgrade to Kentico 12 Portal Engine at their earliest convenience. 

In line with our official product support lifecycle policy, support for Kentico 12 projects running on Portal Engine should end in 2022. However, we have decided to officially support Kentico 12 Portal Engine projects until 2023. That will provide customers with enough time to realize ROI on the project, and, most importantly, give them enough time to plan for the transition from Portal Engine to MVC.

We have also made the decision to continue releasing hotfixes for Kentico 12 Portal Engine for an extra year, until 2021.

Long Term Support

In line with our official product support lifecycle policy, support for Kentico 12 projects running on Portal Engine should end in 2022. However, we have decided to officially support Kentico 12 Portal Engine projects until 2023. That will provide customers with enough time to realize ROI on the project, and, most importantly, give them enough time to plan for the transition from Portal Engine to MVC.

Long Term Support

ASP.NET Core MVC is the recommended development model for all new projects.

Transition to MVC

When it comes to web parts (as building blocks of your website), however, their equivalent in MVC will most likely be represented by your own code-level logic in the MVC application (shopping cart, menus). Of course, you can develop reusable components and use them across the website or other projects (and this is a standard approach in the MVC world). The Page Builder is suitable for widgets—components that are used by marketers to add content to specific areas within a page.

See the MVC transition guide for more information.

Value proposition

Here are some of the benefits of MVC with a positive impact on business:

• MVC helps with website performance optimization—full-control over the HTML output provides SEO benefits, faster page load and overall site interaction. Needless to say, the page speed is reflected by search engines in the ranking. 
• Semantics  MVC allows to better control the semantics of the website (e.g., OpenGraph, Scheme.org, ...).
• Accessibility  with MVC, it's easier to adhere to various accessibility standards and requirements.
• Hiring new employees is easier, higher chances to acquire and retain the best talent.
• Having a modern platform ensures a business is ready for the future and stays competitive.
• Streamlined dev operations and lower upgrade costs (e.g., easier testing, better coding standards and coding practices, separation of concerns, no tightly coupled code, ...).
• Easier to deliver experiences into multiple channels.

SEO

Our goal with Kentico Xperience MVC development support was to provide puristic MVC support with minimal impact on the rendered HTML. That means developers building an MVC project (and MVC widgets used in the project) have full control over the final HTML. That ensures that only HTML that you decide to render will be used. That's the case with Page Builder and widgets. The only exception is the Form engine providing a set of pre-defined form fields (e.g., Text, Email, ...). These render HTML, again in very pure form as we tried to optimize for SEO. However, if you ever feel you want to alter the default HTML, you can easily do so by customizing a specific form widget or creating your own custom one.

SEO

The support for Sections allows you to specify the HTML exactly as you require. You can use your favorite framework (such as Bootstrap) and create sections with responsive columns as well as specify a background color, image, or gradient if you require. Editors can also influence section via properties if supported by the developer Defining section properties.

SEO

The support for Sections allows you to specify the HTML exactly as you require. You can use your favorite framework (such as Bootstrap) and create sections with responsive columns as well as specify a background color, image, or gradient if you require. Editors can also influence section via properties if supported by the developer Defining section properties.

MVC Development

You would usually create an MVC view per page type, but it is not a rule. As you can find on the Dancing Goat MVC demo site, the same view is used for all Articles and a different one is used for Article listing. The same applies to Cafes and can be used for landing pages as well.

MVC Development

Yes, the Testimonial sample widget can be customized to provide additional color options. You would typically have your developers prepare widgets for you and they have all the capabilities to provide any kind of configuration option that fits your requirements.

MVC Development

Kentico Xperience 13 Installer can install the blank ASP.NET Core MVC project or the ASP.NET Core MVC Dancing Goat demo site.

MVC Development

If you wish to reuse your content as much as possible, we recommend using structured content where applicable (such as Articles, Products, News, etc.) and the media library. The Page Builder, along with widgets, is a great for displaying content stored this way (a widget with a list of latest articles, a widget with files from the media library, etc.) as well as for building "one-of" pages, where content is created ad-hoc with no intent to be reused.