Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 Migration: Main Challenges
The evolution of technology is a constant, which means even our favorite software and tools will be updated at some point. Now, this may not be a concern in general, but when you use such solutions to build websites and other tools, the advancement of the underlying technology can prove to be a concern. Take web development and Drupal, for example; with Drupal 8 approaching its end of life, there have been several about switching to Drupal 9.
Drupal is part of the list of most popular content management systems. It offers regular updates for the CMS every six months. For enterprises with websites running on the earlier versions of the CMS would require periodic migration to the latest version. It helps enjoy the complete functionalities with every new update and its upcoming versions would offer. Unlike previous migrations to Drupal’s latest versions, this migration to Drupal 9 is like updating to a new version release.
While there is no doubt that one must make the switch to Drupal 9, it may help to be aware of the key challenges you are likely to face while undertaking such an upgrade.
1. Porting features: We know, we know — all of us want the migration process to be executed quickly. Unfortunately, the chances of success of such a transition from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 are highly reliant on advanced and strategic planning that tends to all possible issues, concerns, and requirements. This list of possible challenges one may face during such a switch includes porting features as well. Because often website owners will compel the code to stray away from deprecated libraries as well as functions, which will eventually be eliminated anyway. As a result, the transition can become a little bit of a challenge based on the website’s code.
2. Incompatible modules: A lot of modern sites now depend on minimal deprecated code, though that is not always the case. What that means is some websites can still end up depending on plenty of deprecated code, which means when the company is transitioning to Drupal 9, the former will need to ensure the developers put in a lot of additional time to achieve complete compatibility with Drupal 9. While in most cases the contrib modules are already compatible with Drupal 9, there will be some instances where the lower usage contrib modules must be updated.
3. Hosting environment: All of the change and transition is great, but what if you get done with it to realize that the two hosting environments are incompatible with each other. So when you plan for such a switch, we highly recommend that you verify every single change and update the need for a successful switch to Drupal 9 has been made.
By November 2021 and Drupal 8 will have reached the end of its lifecycle. This is pretty much the death knell for the iteration. It also implies that those working with such a programming resource would do better to switch things up a bit. This is because in the absence of robust, full-fledged support for the open-source content managed system. In the context of Drupal, such an upgrade means transitioning to Drupal 9. Of course, like everything else in life, to enhance one’s chances for success, it is important to become well-acquainted with the challenges you are likely to face while undertaking the transition process. Hopefully, the above guide has offered ample perspective and feedback about how to take on the challenge of this transition without compromising the quality of your app. If you want, you can also engage the services of a Drupal website & portal development vendor and start working on your Angular development project right away.
