Is Drupal website migration giving you a hard time?

It’s obvious to feel so when you have little knowledge of the same.

As Drupal 9 has embarked on its journey in the market, organizations have been rushing to update to the newer version.

This upgrade has become the need of the hour due to the announcement of the end of life of Drupal 7 in 2022 and Drupal 8 in November 2021.

As with the previous versions, security challenges are going to pose a dilemma for enterprises. Thus, there’s no choice left for them other than to upgrade to the newer version.

So, to help you out of this hassle, here are 6 expert tips to help you smoothly process Drupal website migration.

Start the preparations

There are some preliminary steps involved before you embark on the process of Drupal migration.

• You need to update your Drupal old version to the latest version along with its extensions.
• Make sure you are ready with the backup of your current Drupal website before you start the migration process.
• Do review your existing Drupal website for its features and content structure to check if it is meeting today’s business needs.
• Once you are done with the complete audit of your website, the developers will give you a detailed outlook on what can be migrated and what needs custom rebuilding.
• Contributed modules are all set in many cases, but for custom modules, developers are the first ones for custom rewriting as there is a huge difference in architecture between D7 and D8/9.

Compatible hosting atmosphere

To accomplish a smooth update, it is necessary to make the hosting environment compatible. You need to make sure that all the necessary changes that are required for hosting the site in Drupal 9 are done with utmost accuracy. It will help you make the shift smooth like a cakewalk without any downtime.

Tooling and Paradigm shift

With the new version comes the need to utilize new tools for maintaining, handling, and creating the website. Although, there are no such new tools required for Drupal 9 migration.

However, an excellent team of experienced developers will certainly be needed who are skilled to adopt any tools that might be useful along the way. It is necessary as many tools value depreciate with time and won’t work in the newer versions of Drupal 9 in the coming times. Thus, with the swift migration, you also need to be prepared for the tooling and paradigm shift.

Check for the deprecated API and libraries

When you migrate from your existing version of Drupal to a newer version, you may find a lot of code get deprecated.So when you update to the latest version of Drupal 9, ensure that there are obsolete deprecated codes.

Just like in the case of depreciated codes, you may also find some deprecated libraries in custom articles. So it is necessary to go through all the custom modules and make sure that no deprecated libraries are left behind.

Testing and deployment

The most crucial step before marking it as complete is to check whether the data is completely migrated correctly. It is necessary before making the website live again. To define an ideal testing process, it does not only end at checking the correctness of the migration.

The professional QA engineers perform various kinds of testing. It includes performance, functionality, and usability testing to evaluate the website’s work from all angles.

Developers skillset

Since most developers are used to working with the former versions of Drupal, it is extremely necessary to hire Drupal developers who are skilled to embrace the new version. Before you embark on the process of migrating your website to Drupal 9, ensure that the developers are well versed with the same.

Be it the knowledge of new tools or the strategies before updating the site, developers should have the utmost knowledge of the newer versions of Drupal and its attributes. However, to make the upgrade a speedy process without any errors, the developers need to update and upgrade themselves with what’s new in Drupal with the help of the Drupal community.

Drupal Website Migration-Why is it the need of the hour?

• The absence of security patches or updates has given the rise to the risk for your business website.
• In case your website gets hacked or faces a security threat, it becomes impossible to save your website. It is due to the reason that the Drupal community is no longer working on its older version.
• Some companies may help you in working with the older version, but the expenses may break your bank balance.
• Lastly,you will be missing out on tons of awesome features, improvements, and more. All of these will help you bring desiredexcellence to your online platform in terms of usability and performance.

Take a sigh of relief and start the process of migration

It’s not important that you do the migration yourself or let the experts do it for you! The thing that’s important is to get it right. With the effective tips listed below, you can accomplish this complex process in one go, but you can always take the assistance of the experts who have the utmost experience in it. You may consider any Drupal Development agency that has proven track record.

They will get it done for you with a complete guarantee of no data loss during the migration process. So, gear up to work with the latest version of Drupal.

We wish you all the luck in the world.