Are you ready for Drupal 8?
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The document discusses the considerations for deploying Drupal 8, highlighting its significant advancements and new features compared to earlier versions. It outlines eight key questions to evaluate readiness, emphasizing the importance of responsive design, support for multilingual content, integration opportunities, and the need for a skilled development team. Drupal 8 is portrayed as a robust solution that meets current digital demands and standards, encouraging users to adopt this version for its long-term benefits.
Are you ready for Drupal 8?
- 1. DRUPAL 8? Are you ready for Questions to consider with a Drupal 8 deployment.
- 2. Considering Drupal 8? There are several reasons to jump in the Drupal 8 game as an early adopter. Just take a look at the long list of new features in Drupal 8! Whether you’re an end user or a site builder, there are improvements that everyone can appreciate. Investing in the latest technology can have its long and short-term advantages. Depending on your objectives and requirements, making the leap early can also come with a fair amount of uphill battles. With each major release, Drupal‘s enterprise applications have only expanded and outpaced digital trends. Originally built as a software tool to edit websites, Drupal has become an extremely flexible infrastructure and foundation for advanced digital experiences. The framework has evolved into a central hub for integrations and database infrastructures to organize and display content, data, and of course, continues to drive the standard in sophisticated enterprise web solutions. The possibilities for this open-source technology have been stretched and continue to grow thanks to the hard work of the Drupal community.
- 3. Considering Drupal 8? In this guide, you’ll find a compiled list of 8 questions to consider as you plan for the future. Whether you’re tackling a brand new digital project, evaluating an update for your current web property, or you’re looking for an alternative to your proprietary system, we hope this resource will come in handy!
- 4. What will it take to get to Drupal 8? 1. Do you have a solid responsive solution in place? A recent marketing study shows that 51% of time spent on the Internet in the U.S. is on mobile devices. Google announced this year that they now use mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal that has a high impact on mobile search results. Google’s recommends a responsive web design as the industry best practice. The stats are clear. Fully responsive digital experiences have become a necessity and are the way to go moving forward.
- 5. What will it take to get to Drupal 8? 2. How long will the current version of your CMS be supported by your vendor or the community? If you’re evaluating a proprietary system, there are a number of business reasons to make the change to open-source – cost, sustainability, quality, security, and flexibility to name a few. Are you coming from Cold Fusion or another outdated solution that is no longer supported? Take a deep breath, relax, and welcome to the Drupal community! With more than one million live Drupal sites, over one million community members across the globe, and thousands of pages of documentation, you’re in good hands. Drupal 7 has several years of shelf life left, but choosing 8 could be a smart move for longevity. Only you can make that call. To give you some perspective, Drupal 8 is the biggest and most significant release in Drupal history. With over 2,500 contributors and 200+ unique improvements based on a modern and object oriented framework, Drupal 8 has set the new standard for professional web development.
- 6. What will it take to get to Drupal 8? 3. Are you delivering digital experiences in multiple languages? •As of 2015, the U.S. has more Spanish speakers than Spain. •72% of consumers spend most of their time on sites in their own language •56% of consumers say browsing in their own language is more important than price! •The globalization of the web today demands content be delivered in the user’s language. How are you achieving this today? Drupal 8 has multilingual capabilities out of the box, and depending on your needs, there are great solutions out there for translating content on the fly.
- 7. What will it take to get to Drupal 8? 4. Have you accounted for the integrations you’ll need? Today’s website is not a brochure, it’s a platform that engages your audience with real data and personalization via integrations. Think through the current technology you’re using and the opportunities your organization has to consolidate, connect, and automate. Some elements to consider are:
- 8. What will it take to get to Drupal 8? 5. Is your current digital solution “future-proofed”? Sustainability in your choice of technology is an important factor for the long-term. By embracing modern PHP standards and object oriented code, the Drupal 8 platform is now open to the broader PHP engineering talent pool. As you evaluate solutions, make sure that engineers are able to architect solutions using modern development practices.
- 9. What will it take to get to Drupal 8? 6. Does your current hosting environment support Drupal 8? There are plenty of great Drupal 8 hosting providers available. This is an important question to answer at the beginning of a project. Double check that you’re set up for success! Don’t know where to start? Acquia is leading the way with Drupal 8 hosting.
- 10. What will it take to get to Drupal 8? 7. Is your site optimized for performance? A slow site can kill your user’s experience, especially on mobile. Not only that, it can affect your organic search ranking. The longer your site takes to load, the more likely the searcher will bounce back to other search results. Google translates this behavior as dissatisfaction, which is a #1 ranking factor. With the addition of “baked-in” modules to the Drupal 8 core, sites are lighter and faster from the get-go.
- 11. What will it take to get to Drupal 8? 8. Do you have the development team in mind? If so, have you vetted their experience? It’s crucial that you pick the right engineering partner to meet your needs. The reality today is that Drupal 8 is brand new, cutting edge, and game changing. If you’re going to go down this path sooner rather than later, pick a seasoned Drupal engineer. Over the last decade, we’ve been called many times to rescue Drupal projects that have gone off the track. Get the most out of your budget and sanity. Make sure that you’re working with true Drupal experts if you’re considering a Drupal 8 project. At present, there’s a handful of qualified vendors in every region of the globe. Our advice is to go with a team that understands the complexity of your project. Along with due diligence in selecting your engineering partner, you may want to prepare for the resources you will need in the future to deploy updates if you choose the Drupal 8 path.
- 12. Explore the possibilities. Do you have more questions? Let’s talk about them together. We’re here to help you navigate the ins and outs of your next project. Our team is happy to assess your project and determine a roadmap to Drupal 8. We can help you architect the migration path for current functionality and map out enhancements to help you meet your business goals. Did we mention that we’re integration experts? With 7 Acquia Certified Grand Master Developers on staff, our clients can count on our team's abilities to build and deploy the right solutions.
- 13. Explore the possibilities. We're a team of strategic problem solvers and wizard open source engineers. For over 13 years, we've made the most complex web development projects possible for companies like: Universal Music Group, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, The Recording Academy, Scripps Translational Science Institute, and Dexcom. achieveinternet.com | 800.618.8777 Let’s connect!