Track(s):
Content Strategy, Dev / DevOps, General, Site Building
Audience:
Advanced, All, Beginner, Intermediate

If your Drupal 7 website has largely served you well and you don't need to rethink the content or architecture dramatically, you can give it new life with a direct upgrade path to Backdrop CMS. Using the recent upgrade of Stanford Bio-X from Drupal 7 to Backdrop as a case study, we'll cover how:

  • Backdrop relieves the pressure and uncertainty of Drupal 7's looming End of Life.
  • Out of the box improvements in Backdrop come for free with the upgrade (think accessibility, performance, usability).
  • Drupal 7 themes can be conceptually split into layout and theme, and the current theme replicated, refreshed, or replaced.
  • Configuration management helps dramatically in the upgrade process.
  • The relative smoothness of a direct upgrade path (compared with a migration) can leave extra room in the budget for other improvements as follow-ups.
  • Content can be consolidated and terms reworked or merged after the upgrade.