Merging websites into a Drupal-based medical platform
Attico International has successfully merged 29 websites into a medical platform, enabling the customer to reduce maintenance and support expenses and simplify…
Attico renders full-cycle Drupal migration services — from planning to execution our team of engineers is capable of migrating Drupal 7 solutions of any complexity.
Drupal 7 has been out since 2011 and is scheduled to reach its end of life on January 5, 2025. After this date, no official support will be provided by the Drupal community, entailing higher TCO and increased risks.
During an attack in 2018, known as Drupalgeddon2, hackers received access to over one million websites, including their hostings, and could manage them to send spam, distribute viruses, and publish inappropriate content.
Staying on Drupal 7 will involve increased costs for your business due to the need to fix security issues, maintain dated modules, and keep your website running by hiring developers to patch the core of the system instead of relying on regular Drupal updates.
Since Drupal 7 is no longer receiving security updates, it becomes more susceptible to cyber-attacks. Your clients’ personal and payment data might be compromised, leading to your reputation damage.
As more businesses are migrating to Drupal 10, they make use of new features, improved performance, and a more modern technology stack. Continuing on Drupal 7 deprives your business of these opportunities and makes you lag behind in the race of competition.
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Fresh tech stackDrupal 10 uses the latest technology stack: new default administration and client-side themes, optimized for accessibility, as well as an ultra-modern rich-text editor with improved authoring experience and enhanced editing options spiced with next-gen image format support.
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Composer-based coreDrupal is based on Composer, which simplifies module development and allows for quick and easy use of PHP libraries. This allows developers to mix and match reliable pre-made components and avoid reinventing the wheel, saving you development time and costs.
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Symfony under the hoodDrupal is built on top of Symfony, which enforces standardization and promotes interoperability, enabling the reusability of components and reducing routine tasks during development, thus saving up to three days of development time by repurposing out-of-the-box components.
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Better performanceAfter migrating to Drupal 10, you’ll notice your website performance improvement including faster page load times and reduced memory usage. This is due to the updated caching system, better management of assets, and lazy loading of images, which lowers the server load.
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Reactivity supportWith the support of React and Vue.js, whose modular structure is easier to maintain, your users will enjoy a smooth and uninterrupted experience across the UI. At the end of the day, this will increase user engagement of users and will result in them performing more target actions, increasing profits.
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SustainabilityWith Drupal 10 being focused on minimizing the environmental footprint, your business will become more sustainable. Since Drupal drives about 2% of the web, and the internet is responsible for about 2% of global CO2 emissions, migrating from Drupal 7 will make your business more eco-friendly.
Attico International approaches migration services with a well-defined process to avoid interruptions in your website’s operation.
Requirements gathering. We work closely with you to understand your business goals and requirements and account for them when executing migration.
Site audit. Our team carries out a comprehensive site audit, including the analysis of content, data, SEO settings, modules, and users to identify the scope of work.
Refinement suggestions. We advise on what types of data to maintain or alter. Migration is a great chance to remove unnecessary data and modules, and replace the outdated ones with their modern counterparts.
Migration plan. This analysis allows us to draft a migration plan containing a detailed description of the new architecture, upgrades, key milestones, objectives, costs, and the timeline.
Database snapshot. Prior to running the actual data migration, we create a database snapshot that completely replicates your original database except for sensitive data.
Mapping. To avoid any losses, we determine all the changes in the site structure, layout, and data and map them between the old and the new versions.
Migration to the test environment. Drupal 7 is initially migrated to the test environment, where we perform a comprehensive set of manual and automated tests against a predefined list of cases to ensure proper operation.
Execution. We settle on the desired date and time of migration with you, activate the read-only mode for your old database, thus blocking the ability to make any further changes there and commence the migration.
Upon completion of the migration you will receive a range of deliverables moved to a fresh installation of the newest Drupal version.
The Attico team migrates all data from the old system to the new one and performs comprehensive manual and automated quality assurance and checks to ensure that everything is in place including but not limited to users’ data and passwords, contact form data and its submissions, URLs, comments, meta tags, schema markups, SEO settings, and redirects.
Given the architectural differences of Drupal 7 and 8, your theme cannot be migrated and should be recreated from scratch. Indeed, we can replicate your old theme as is. However, you can seize this opportunity to create a comprehensive atomic design system that will act as a modular UI backbone during theme development and breathe new life into your solution.
We help to optimize your business processes and enhance website performance by suggesting which functionality might be best to retain or alter. Based on the business analysis conducted earlier, we discard the no-longer-needed functionality, replace the outdated modules with their Drupal 8+ counterparts or, if there are none, help you find modules with similar functionality.
Attico International values clear and effective communication with you at all Drupal migration stages.
We work in two-week sprints, presenting the deliverables upon completion of each sprint and adjusting the migration plan shall the need arise. Also, we schedule regular one-hour Q&A sessions with you to get your feedback and incorporate it into the delivered solution. The framework ensures that your priorities are addressed throughout cooperation and that the entire process is tailored to suit the ever-changing business needs.
Your website comprises multiple independent sections each dedicated to a specific domain of your business: a news outlet, a blog, a product catalog, a portfolio, a wiki, a forum, and landing pages. We can transition them to newer Drupal in stages to facilitate the burden of a complex migration on your business.
To make sure that migration was successful, we use a range of testing methods, including but not limited to manual testing of documented test cases, spot testing with the depth and scope agreed upon with the client, and automated database testing to ensure the integrity of the content.
It is important to remember that your engagement is crucial for a successful migration. Your input and feedback will be necessary at all stages:
You formulate business goals and requirements. When the migration plan is drafted, you provide feedback so that we can better tailor it to the specifics of your business, domain, and operations.
You provide continual feedback so that we remain in sync — as new features are introduced, we ask you to get acquainted with them to let us know if anything needs to be improved.
The migration is done when you approve it and make sure that the site meets your expectations. Even after the completion, we continue to hypercare about you and provide you with 24/7 support.
While migrating your Drupal 7 website to a newer version there are several things an owner has to keep in mind before commencing the project.
With multiple content management systems available today, deciding on whether to stay on Drupal or switch the platform after the end of life of Drupal 7 is a question that might pop up in your mind. We highly recommend sticking to Drupal for multiple reasons:
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