About twice every year Magento releases a new version. You are notified of this through a message that pops up after you log in to the Magento admin. New Magento versions contain bugfixes, security updates, and new features. When there is an upgrade, you can update your Magento installation through the MagentoConnect Manager. This way, you will get the new Magento files on your server easily. There is a big risk while doing that though: your store might not work with the updated Magento files. That's why a Magento upgrade should be handled like any other technical change in your store. Never upgrade live before you've tested the upgrade extensively in a copy of your live site. Go through all checklists in this chapter, even the items which you think haven't changed in the upgrade.

When following the guidelines of this chapter and the advice in this book, you should be able to launch a store within budget with a minimum required feature set, and have a solid roadmap for future developments driven by real-world experience!