Drupal 9 is Released – Prepare Your Website for Drupal 9 Migration! A Guide to Compare Drupal 7, Drupal 8 & Drupal 9!

By | Date posted: | Last updated: March 8, 2022
Drupal 9 Released

Drupal 9 has been released

Drupal 9 has been released and it is the easiest upgrade ever. We’d love to share our learnings with the Drupal community.

What are the new features of Drupal 9?

Drupal 9.0 will have the same features as the final minor release of Drupal 8 (other than those provided by updated dependencies). Similar to Drupal 8, Drupal 9.1, 9.2, etc. will add new backwards-compatible features to Drupal 9 every six months after Drupal 9.0. The key benefit of Drupal 9 over Drupal 8 is the platform will be supported with security fixes after November 2022. The standout feature of Drupal 9 is its ability to provide as easy an upgrade as feasible from Drupal 8.

To illustrate this, imagine your website is a train. Previously, moving major versions meant moving the train to a different track entirely. Beginning with Drupal 9, new major versions will just be stations on the same track.

Drupal 9.0 will not include new features but Drupal 9.1 onwards will continue to

How to Prepare Your Website for Drupal 9 Migration?

1. How to prepare a Drupal 8 site for Drupal 9?

If you have a Drupal 8 site, you can relax as Drupal 9 will be almost exactly the same as the final minor version of Drupal 8.
The key thing to do is ensure your website is up-to-date with Drupal’s existing core and module/theme releases. Then you’ll easily be able to upgrade to the final Drupal 8 minor version when it comes out. This will be released alongside Drupal 9 and will be the same as Drupal 9, except it won’t have the updated dependencies and removal of deprecated code.
For any custom code on your website, you can also start using deprecation checking and correction tools to ensure the code is compatible with Drupal 9.
There will be community support for Drupal 8 until November 2022, so there’s plenty of time to get your website up-to-date.

2. How to prepare a Drupal 7 site for Drupal 9?

Preparing a Drupal 7 site for Drupal 9 is a bit more complicated, but there’s still no need to panic.

The best thing to do is to migrate Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 as soon as possible, and incorporate deprecation checking tools into the migration process. This will make your eventual upgrade to Drupal 9 much easier, as Drupal 9 is much more similar to Drupal 8 than Drupal 7.

To migrate your site to Drupal 8, we recommend using the migrate module suite in order to re-build your site and import content effectively. The Drupal module upgrader tool is also very helpful for flagging up and converting code that requires updating.

There will be community support for Drupal 7 until November 2022, so whilst there’s plenty of time to get your website up-to-date, it’s important to start preparing for Drupal 9 now.

Drupal 7 Vs. Drupal 8 Vs. Drupal 9

Drupal 7 and 8 will be end-of-life in November 2022, Drupal 9 has been released.

Drupal 9 released in 2020, it means we’ll certainly have Drupal 8.8 and 8.9 releases.

Wait, it means you will only have one year to migrate from Drupal 8 to 9?

Yes, but fortunately moving from Drupal 8 to 9 will be far easier than previous major version upgrades. The first release of Drupal 9 will be very similar to the last minor release of Drupal 8, as the primary goal of the Drupal 9.0.0 release will be to remove deprecated code and update third-party dependencies. By keeping your Drupal 8 sites up to date, you should be well prepared for Drupal 9.

And what about contributed modules? The compatibility of contributed modules is historically one of the biggest blockers to upgrading, also make it possible for contributed modules to be compatible with Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 at the same time. As long as contributed modules do not use deprecated APIs, they should work with Drupal 9 while still being compatible with Drupal 8.

Difference between Drupal 8.9 and Drupal 9.0

Drupal 8 Will be end-of-life by November 2022!

Drupal 8 is dependent on Symfony 3, and Symfony 3’s end of life is November 2022. Consequently, Drupal 8 support will end in November 2022. Consequently, Drupal 8 support will end in November 2022. A long-term-support (LTS) Drupal 8.9 minor release will be released alongside Drupal 9 and supported until November 2022. Drupal 8 will only receive patch releases following Drupal 9.0.0’s release. No new features will be added to Drupal 8, nor will minor releases be made available.

Drupal 8 is in the center of community’s ideas and is getting lucrative technological innovations all the time. Despite the EOL in 2021, the future looks particularly bright for D8 website owners. And here’s why.

Compared to Drupal 7, Drupal 8 is a technological breakthrough. That’s why upgrades from D7 to D8 are often lengthy (depending on the site complexity). But if you have moved to D8 from D7, that was your LAST cumbersome upgrade. No more of that from now on!

Drupal 8 websites will move to D9 quickly and smoothly. Lightning-fast upgrades will be provided for those that are using the latest Drupal 8 minor version and no deprecated APIs. This golden rule of keeping up-to-date and avoiding deprecated APIs helps even contributed and custom Drupal 8 modules be instantly compatible with Drupal 9! At Skynet Technologies, we are always ready to take care of this for you.

Difference between Drupal 7 and Drupal 8

Below is the few major difference we have listed but there are many.

Drupal 7 Will be supported until November 2022!

Drupal 7 will reach end of life (EOL). Official community support for version 7 will end, along with support provided by the Drupal Association on Drupal.org. This means that automated testing services for Drupal 7 will be shut down, and there will be no more updates provided by the Drupal Security Team.

When this occurs, Drupal 7 will be marked end-of-life in the update manager, which appears in the Drupal administrative interface. Updates, security fixes, and enhancements will no longer be provided by the community, but may be available on a limited basis from select commercial vendors.

If you have a site that is running on Drupal 7, now is the time to start planning the upgrade. Note that the transition from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 will not be the significant effort that the transition from 7 to 8 was. In fact, the first release of Drupal 9 will be identical to the last release of Drupal 8, except with deprecated code removed and dependencies updated to newer versions.

The best option is to move to Drupal 8 in the nearest future. Just one upgrade will be their ticket to the future hassle-free upgrades (to Drupal 9, 10, and beyond). And, of course, they will be in line with the times and have all the Drupal 8 innovations. Our Drupal 9 migration experts are ready to smoothly move you to Drupal 8.

Conclusion

If you are still using Drupal 7 and are wondering what to do, you currently have two options:

  1. Stay on Drupal 7 while also updating your PHP version. If you stay on Drupal 7 until after 2021, you can either engage a vendor for a long term support contract, or migrate to Drupal 9.
  2. Migrate to Drupal 8 by 2020, so that it’s easier to update to Drupal 9 when it is released.

Need Help Upgrading to Drupal 9?

At Skynet Technologies, we’ve designed, built, supported and updated hundreds of Drupal websites. As Drupal specialists, we’re members of the Drupal Association.

Whether you want to upgrade/migrate to Drupal 9, add new features, fix a bug/problem or maximize security protection website, our team of Drupal Web Development and Drupal Website Maintenance experts can guide you as per your requirements.

Please Get in Touch or Request a Quote for more information.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about how Skynet Technologies can help your business to reach one step ahead, Reach out us through below form & We'll get back to you soon!

How Coronavirus Outbreak is Impacting the E-Commerce and Online Business Sales?

By | Date posted: | Last updated: December 28, 2020
Effect of Corona in Ecommerce

While the world is battling the Corona Virus outbreak with its huge health implications, its claim on economy and business has been as widespread. The one thing that is seeing a definite shift in the pandemic is spending priorities.

Amidst these unprecedented changes, there have been voices that have been stating that e-commerce is slated to grow on account of the current conditions. It stands to reason that with a large population homebound with the COVID-19 outbreak, e-commerce is an effective fallback. In fact a bullish scenario states that as customers avoid public places, online divisions of retailers stand to gain.

In the current scenario we have already seen essential supplies such as e-groceries, food and medical supplies see unprecedented sales. In China, for example, restaurants and cinema chains that have seen a massive drop in footfalls, have in fact shared their employees with an e-grocery supermarket to aid delivery services. All of this is perhaps an indicator of the fact that the digital arm of retail businesses, at least those of essential commodities, is likely to show a high rate of growth.

While one needs to see how the economy progresses, the fact is retailers cannot afford to wait and watch. They will need to leverage their assets to inspire demand. For starters that includes boosting their digital marketing efforts. When it comes to e-commerce solutions, in particular, the following short term & long run measures need to be in place:

Short-term measures:

  • Ensure that you have a robust e-commerce and Shopping cart solution in place. If you haven’t already invested in one, it is time to act now.
  • Time and efforts will need to be spent in ensuring that product information is up-to-date and accurate. It is also important to see that products are discoverable through search as also through content marketing. It will help to mark the out-of-stock items clearly so that there is no customer dissonance.
  • Speaking of mitigating customer dissonance, there is a pressing need to ensure fair price marketing and set achievable delivery dates so that you do not land up over-committing yourself.
  • An important aspect to tackle is also how the delivery will be fulfilled especially as people are sensitive to having anyone visit their premises. You need to take adequate precautions to keep the products as well as your people safe.
  • Beyond these business practices, in unprecedented times such as these, it is extremely important to see how you can support the larger community. It could be helping them with essential supplies, setting up a credible donation platform or offer logistical support.

While these are immediate business strategies, in the long term however it may mean a host of changes including pivoting towards new products, newer business models, improved customer engagement and more. E-commerce and digital medium at large will be central to all of this. Emerging digital technologies such as augmented reality or visual search would also come in handy in times such as these.

This, however, is not to discount the fact that supply chain issues and uncertain consumer demand, if the economy falters, are important factors to consider when it comes to the online business sales outlook in the long term. E-commerce businesses may need to contend with issues arising on account of:

  • A faltering economy
  • Supply chain issues
  • Pressure on account of surge in online orders and more.

Businesses will therefore need to:

  • Have a crisis plan in place to adapt to evolving circumstances
  • Relook at their offline-online sales channel mix
  • Focus on social selling rather than push marketing
  • Innovate to make use of emerging opportunities

While these are areas that businesses need to prepare for, overall as a thumb rule, businesses that are flexible and can leverage their digital and e-commerce solutions are likely to emerge stronger in the long run.

Even above their sales channel mixes, businesses need to focus on building genuine long-term relationships with their customers in these times of crisis. In fact, businesses that are able to reinvent themselves to cater to real humans need in this hour of crisis are the ones that are likely to stand the test of time.

Skynet Technologies is a highly experienced and trusted provider of E-Commerce and Shopping Cart Solutions. We have a skilled and dedicated developers having years of expertise in delivering simple to complex online business solution across all the industry domains. We help start-ups, small to medium businesses, enterprises, corporations, web development agencies and firms to grow their business and keep website up-to-date with latest technology trends.

If you are looking for a Ecommerce Website Development, Shopping Cart Development, Online Store Development and Web Application Development, Please Explore our Ecommerce Solutions! We also provide Ecommerce Website Maintenance Services, Online Store Maintenance Services and Web Application Security Audit. For More Information, Please Visit Our Website Maintenance Services!
If you have any questions or would like to know more about how Skynet Technologies can help your business to reach one step ahead, Reach out us through below form & We'll get back to you soon!

Why Choose Drupal over Other CMS for Your Business Website?

By | Date posted: | Last updated: May 7, 2021
Why Choose Drupal

As its name implies, a CMS is designed to create, edit, publish, and distribute content. Finding the right CMS for your business website is essential for you to achieve the goals set for your business. When choosing a CMS manager, you need to look at some points such as

  • Degree of difficulty for the developer to make customizations.
  • Features offered.

There are various standard CMS platform available in the market. All of them are known due to their features. But, why should you choose Drupal CMS instead of any other CMS for your business website? Does it comply with every needs of a business website? Do you get all the benefits of a modern business CMS? Which are the qualities, and features we should look for?

Let’s look at 3 Aspects that Drupal CMS stands out

Drupal is a Content Management System (CMS) – written in PHP. That is, with Drupal you can create, manage, manipulate and share content, automate administrative tasks, and set permissions, and roles for users and collaborators. Drupal web development offers several formatting options for you to share your content.

Professional and efficient – We can already note that the main feature of Drupal is professionalism. Despite being a bit hard for the non-technical user, Drupal is the system that can produce more complex, and advanced business websites. It is true that with each update, it has become easier to use, but it still requires a long learning time for the user to understand all the functions, and features.

Content Management – As a good business CMS, the primary role is to manage content. In this sphere, Drupal is known for its ability to catalog, categorize, and organize complex content. Members can publish to various content modules through the browser interface. These content modules can be stories, blogs, polls, images, forums, downloads, etc.

Modules – Just like Word Press has plugins that expand the functionality of the platform, so Drupal has what is called modules. Through the system, modules are allowed to insert functionality into Drupal. Check out the complete guide on Drupal Custom Module Development.

These will be the benefits for Drupal CMS Development

Creating a Drupal business website is an extremely simple task, and can be accomplished in a few clicks. The relevance of these early moments comes from the fact that here you will need to make a name for your business site, and build the layout of your page. If you have no knowledge of web designer, you can use one of the free themes provided by Drupal itself, or hire Drupal developer. Below are the primary benefits of Drupal CMS development for your business website.

Ecosystem – Much more than just software, Drupal is a community of developers, enthusiasts and service companies that together develop, and evolve Drupal to meet the needs of business website users, and customers.

Thousands of features – It is often said that there is a module for every imaginable feature for a Drupal site. Drupal has over 1000 active modules, and 600 themes that can be installed within minutes, and applied to business website project.

Open Source Platform – Don’t worry about annual licenses or subscriptions. Drupal website development is an open source framework that is free of any license cost. Just download the latest version of Drupal Core, and start developing your business website, and applications.

Scalability – Progressively increasing the number of users or content will not affect the performance of your business site or application. Drupal is a proven platform at this level, with over one million pages built on the platform, and over 20,000 requests per second.

Safety – Drupal is known for its excellent degree of security, absolutely essential for a CMF used by thousands of business websites – many of them high profile. To ensure this level of security, Drupal is constantly subjected to rigorous security testing by the Drupal community, as well as proven experts in the field to prevent security vulnerabilities, and ensure a quick and effective response to any issues that may arise.

Multilingualism – Do not speak English? With Drupal web development you can easily configure your business website to use one of over 90 languages ​​available or more than one at a time.

Flexibility – Anything is possible once the needs and requirements of the product to be developed are clearly defined. You can customize your business website as you see fit. The only limit is your creativity. To create your Drupal ecommerce site, you just have to use the features, functionality, plugins, extensions and customization modules available in the panel.

Drupal is an extremely flexible Content Management System

Drupal allows the user to select the way to share online content that best fits their needs. So, before hiring the best Drupal development company, below is a short list of the main modules, and features in Drupal.

  • Sites – More robust content portals, usually with a group of people in charge. Business Websites usually have a specific theme and always generates their content around that theme.
  • Blogs – Unlike business websites, blogs tend to have more personal content, being focused on sharing testimonials, and opinionated text on various topics.
  • Discussion Forums – Virtual spaces that bring people together to exchange, and discuss information on any topic. Anyone can post to a forum by creating a virtual profile.
  • Online Store – Page built for sale and purchase of products online. With Drupal ecommerce development, you can create your online store, and organize the entire process of buying, and selling products – inventory control, customer control, order control, delivery control, and shopping cart, etc.

Conclusion: What is the value of Drupal CMS development?

The bigger advantage compared to others seems to be in freedom. In short, Drupal is an efficient platform for its own purposes, and has been gaining more space, making it a great choice for you looking for an efficient and easy-to-manage Content Management System for your business website. There are several plugins, and are easy to install. Those who wish to develop their business website can bet on Drupal CMS development. At the speed, Drupal seems to have a good advantage, being much lighter than its competitors. This is why business website developers reduce these risks while using Drupal. It is a light and fast CMS. Less chance of a site invasion.

So, are you looking forward to get your business website? Now it is time to hire the dedicated Drupal developer to get your e-commerce site in affordable price. Remember, only hire the web development agency based on its proven experience, market reputation, previously doe projects, customer feedback, and according to your budget.

We offer Drupal CMS Development, Drupal Web Development, Drupal Commerce Development and much more. We also provide Drupal Website Maintenance Services and Drupal Application Security Audit. For More Information, Please Visit Our Drupal Maintenance Services!

If you have any questions or would like to know more about how Skynet Technologies can help your business to reach one step ahead, Reach out us through below form & We'll get back to you soon!

10 Key Benefits of Drupal Web Development That You Can’t Ignore

By | Date posted: | Last updated: May 13, 2021
Drupal Web Development

Drupal is functioning dynamically in the present multimedia world since 2001. It is one among the top three most popular content management systems of the world. Developers and designers can create any content as per their taste on the site. Millions of applications and websites are powered by Drupal. It is technically advanced open source CMS with extensive flexibility.

Below are the 10 key benefits of Drupal web development:

Drupal Customization

Drupal is highly customized as compared to other CMS platforms. It provides various custom built options such as Designs, Layouts and operations. This provides high rate of choice to designers and developers. So that they can customize the website as per the client’s needs. Drupal boasts of over 16000 modules and plug-ins and permits you to implement additional features into your website like social media, CRM, security and SEO.

Exceptional Drupal API support

Today, people of every age and professions use social networking sites. Developers build website that is friendly with social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc. These social sites provide extensive API support for Drupal. This helps to expand business and is convenient feature not to be ignored. Also developers can create own custom modules by applying such well-documented API.

Convenient and Robust

Make sure that the source code for developing your Drupal site is precisely written and designed by Drupal expert. Our dedicated team of Drupal experts can assist you with complete Drupal website maintenance and services. Whenever you wish to do more complex and advanced work, you will find it convenient and easy to change the system. This will provide users with advantage over other CMS.

Enterprise-class Software

Drupal is an Enterprise-class CMS and this permits Developers to integrate with other applications like SAP, phpBB, etc. It is very highly flexible, reliable, easily manageable platform with zero compromises on security. Thus it is appropriate for both big and small enterprises.

Drupal SEO- Friendly

Drupal SEO service helps you to design the content of your website; so that your website remains on top of the search engine results. This way it will create more traffic and users to your website. SEO plays an important role in any company’s online marketing and Drupal gives enormous flexibility to display content in a way that search engine likes. Thus appearing on top of search engines can increase the visibility and growth of your website tremendously.

Mobile-ready Platform

In today’s digital world people prefer using smarter devices than conventional devices. This generates new marketing platforms and new ways to promote and market your products in a new way. Also this is a better way to reach right customers smartly and directly. Drupal is mobile ready platform, it is a boom for all small and large business. Especially for small business this feature of Drupal proves to be most preferred and useful. It permits small entrepreneurs to wide number of customers and generate more and more leads.

Open- Source

Drupal is an open source software package. This means a large number of themes are free of cost. The cost on web development is significantly reduced which helps businessman to reduce overall costs. Open source brings in more opinions, more ideas and more suggestions and thus more value to business. As in open source software you do not pay for using it; instead you can edit it if you find something is missing in it.  You can even request to other experienced members of the community to make necessary changes.

Drupal Security

Drupal is known for its unshakable security measures that are complimented with regular updates and security patches by Drupal experts and contributors. Drupal’s community is the world’s largest community with more than 100000 users that check security issues regularly. It’s tracking system can track any security issue and fix it. In 2015, the annual Drupal security report notes that “there have been no widely exploited vulnerabilities in Drupal core for which there was no patch or upgrade available at the time of public disclosure.” Due to this, big sites like the Whitehouse’s official site, NASA, CERN etc. requiring extreme security are using Drupal.

Flexibility

Drupal is considered the most flexible CMS undoubtedly. You can simply create the website of your choice and thoughts by Drupal and can customize any content on your site. Like blogs, pages, forums, design layouts, fonts, stock images, etc. everything can be customized without putting efforts of implementing custom code. Drupal’s flexible design platform makes it easy to create generate simple as well as complicated configured web pages.

Drupal Scalability

Drupal’s tremendous scalability extends Drupal core to a higher level with a variety of contributed Drupal modules. Drupal modules integrate perfectly with Drupal core. They have a special effective and absolute connection among themselves. In spite of the fact that many modules are totally different. Due to Drupal’s unique built in system and natural structure; its Scalability has become core strength of Drupal compared to other CMS. This increases the power of your website, and helps you grow the number of your web pages without changing anything.

Hence, a Drupal website can be used to configure your own unique brand. And it helps your business to succeed in wide growing competition. Developers, enterprisers and even business clients are interested to be in trustworthy shade of this CMS. Drupal is the perfect solution to get high quality and dynamic website to attract users. It enables organizations to address all the requirements for stronger online presence. From newsletters to resource directories, e-commerce site to social networking site and community web portals to personal websites Drupal does right thing on right time.

For full end to end Drupal Development or assistance in creating a custom Drupal theme or module feel free to hire dedicated developers from Skynet Technologies, a specialized Drupal Development Company in India. We possess expertise in providing professional, innovative, and highly customized solutions for Drupal 7& 8.

Our professional Drupal Web Development services are available in Nevada, California, Ohio, Michigan, New York, Florida and all the 50 states of USA, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and worldwide.

If you are looking for a Drupal Web Development, Drupal Commerce Development and Other Related Web Development Services, for more information, Please Explore our Drupal Web Development Services! We also provide Drupal Website Maintenance Services and Drupal Application Security Audit. For More Information, Please Visit Our Drupal Maintenance Services!

If you have any questions or would like to know more about how Skynet Technologies can help your business to reach one step ahead, Reach out us through below form & We'll get back to you soon!