Final Call for Drupal 7: Essential Insights for Website Owners - Migrate to Drupal 10

As we approach the extended end-of-life (EOL) deadline for Drupal 7 in January 2025, many organizations are facing pivotal decisions about their digital future. The discontinuation of support for Drupal 7 and PHP 7.4 presents both challenges and opportunities for businesses reliant on this technology. With the digital landscape evolving rapidly, transitioning from Drupal 7 to a more advanced and secure platform is essential for maintaining and enhancing online presence.

Why Migrate from Drupal 7?

Continuing to use Drupal 7 after its end-of-life (EOL) poses significant risks. Without official support, sites remain susceptible to emerging security threats and may fall behind due to outdated functionalities. Upgrading to a more recent version is advisable as it ensures enhanced security measures, improved performance, and the introduction of modern features that lead to a better experience for both users and administrators. Transitioning to a newer Drupal version is a strategic move to maintain your site’s integrity and keep pace with digital innovation.

Exploring Migration Paths: Embracing Drupal 10's Innovations

Transitioning from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 is not just an upgrade; it's a strategic move to enhance your digital footprint. This shift provides an opportune moment to rethink and refine your digital strategy. Drupal 10 offers new functionalities and ongoing innovation, so the upgrade process can also include a site redesign. Since Drupal 10 is aiming to reduce its reliance on jQuery (a heavy JavaScript library) as much as possible, it might also be a good option for your site to review old, outdated tools used on your company website and eliminate them, allowing your website visitors to access your services more robustly.

However, if your company is not considering a site redesign and your primary concern is security, Drupal 10 is still an excellent choice. It provides a stepping stone to future Drupal versions. Drupal 10 includes a much-improved Editor experience based on CKEditor5, a new mobile-friendly Claro theme in the core, and many other minor features that can significantly simplify the Editor's experience, especially on mobile devices.

Migrating to Drupal 10 allows organizations to reimagine their website's capabilities, from improving user experience to integrating cutting-edge web technologies. The move is a step towards a more future-proof platform, ready to adapt to evolving web trends and user needs.

In essence, choosing Drupal 10 for your migration path means leveraging a platform built for modern web experiences, ensuring your digital presence remains robust, flexible, and forward-thinking.

Preparation is Key: Ensuring a Smooth Transition

A smooth transition to Drupal 10 starts with upgrading your Drupal 7 site and all installed and enabled modules to their latest versions. Before upgrading, you should review your modules and themes, and disable any that are not in use. Once this is done, you should check for appropriate modules/themes for Drupal 10 and add them to the fresh Drupal code base in advance.

After your Drupal 7 site is updated to the latest version, you can proceed to the next step - preparing the Drupal 10 site to accept the Drupal 7 site's content and configuration.

Make sure the Drupal 10 site is installed, and the Drupal Migrate module is enabled. Then, go to the https://your-drupal10.site/upgrade address and start the upgrade process. Follow the wizard: Define the Drupal 7 site's database configuration, choose which configurations to migrate, and choose which content to migrate. Once all preparations are done, review the migration. If everything looks good, process the migration. After some time, you should have all your content and configuration migrated to the Drupal 10 site.

Take into account that some configurations may not be migrated automatically. Particularly, if you have views on your website, make sure to recreate them manually on the Drupal 10 website.

Also, if there is custom code on your website in modules or themes, make sure to convert it to a Drupal 10-compatible variant. This can be the most complicated part of the migration, especially if your website uses custom logic in templates since Drupal 10 uses the TWIG template engine, which is incompatible with the old Drupal 7 PHP Template Engine.

The process looks simple for small websites that do not use custom code, do not have web services integration, and so on. However, if your website is staffed with custom logic, has an incompatible Drupal 7 theme, or other complexities, the upgrade process might not be as easy.

How iTech4Web can help with Upgrade

At iTech4Web, we specialize in assisting organizations and businesses with full and seamless upgrades from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10, ensuring improved security, performance, and modern features. Our expert team provides comprehensive support throughout the upgrade process, including planning, development, testing, and deployment, tailored to meet your unique business needs and objectives. Contact us for more details on how we can facilitate your transition to a more advanced and secure Drupal platform.

Contact us to ensure your upgrade process is handled efficiently and without delay.