Continued upgrades are needed to keep your Drupal website secure and receive new features. However, many businesses hesitate to upgrade to new versions of Drupal due to the complexity of the process. There’s no simple solution, and these projects take careful scoping and planning.
To help you fully understand the process, we’ve compiled answers to the most common questions we see about Drupal migrations.
When are Drupal 7 and 8 end of life?
Both Drupal 7 and 8 were both scheduled for EOL November 2021. However, given the impact of COVID-19 on budgets and businesses, the Drupal team extended EOL for Drupal 7 until November 2022. However, Drupal 8 will still go EOL November 2021. This may sound confusing, but there are reasons why it makes sense. When a version reaches end of life, it will no longer receive security updates or bug fixes unless you purchase a support contract from a third-party vendor.
When does Drupal 9 Release?
Drupal 9 releases June 2020. Drupal 9.0.0 will essentially be the same code as 8.9.0, with upgraded third-party libraries and deprecated legacy code.
What is the migration process from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8?
Drupal 8 has been re-architected to use more third-party PHP libraries like Symfony, so users of Drupal 7 are required to migrate their configuration and content to upgrade to Drupal 8.
The Drupal 8 Migration API makes this piece easy for core modules, which have pre-configured migration plugins. On the other hand, migration support for contributed modules is spotty.
You’ll need to evaluate which modules will be difficult to migrate, and a Drupal migration audit can help determine the best course of action by answering these questions:
- Does the module have migration support?
- Would it be beneficial to replace with another module before migration?
- Could writing a custom plugin streamline the module’s migration?
Learn more about the consequences of waiting too long to migrate from Drupal 7 to 8, and see what Drupal 7 problems will be solved with Drupal 8 and 9.
Is there an upgrade path from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9?
Yes – the migration path from 7 to 9 is the same migration path as from 7 to 8.
If your website is still on Drupal 7, we recommend upgrading to Drupal 8 as soon as possible to facilitate your upgrade to Drupal 9.
What is the Drupal 8 to 9 Upgrade Path?
The strategy for major version releases starting with Drupal 9 will be to upgrade Drupal’s dependencies (e.g. Symfony) and deprecate legacy code, rather than re-architect like what happened between 7 and 8. This will make it easier to upgrade-in-place, rather than migrate between versions.
This is why Drupal 8 will be end of life at the same time as Drupal 7, with no commercial support program planned for Drupal 8.
Ready to get started with your Drupal migration?
Atlantic BT is experienced with custom Drupal development and helping you evaluate your content and modules. As Drupal 9 approaches, we are offering a free preliminary assessment to kickstart your Drupal 8 migration.
