Migration, not upgrade
Drupal 8, released in November of 2015, was a major rewrite of the underlying Drupal code (Drupal's core engine and APIs). Because of the multitude of changes, there is no direct in-place upgrade path to go from any earlier version of Drupal to Drupal 8 or later. Instead, Drupal 7 and earlier sites must be migrated to Drupal 8 or later, which involves setting up a whole new Drupal 8 website and copying into it (manually or automatically) the content of the older website.
All Drupal 7 sites that are to remain on Drupal should be migrated to Drupal 10, the latest version of Drupal.
Requirements and Web Hosting Support
Drupal 10 requires a hosting environment running at least PHP 7.4 or later, which is available on OIT Web Hosting. OIT does not currently support the use of Drush or command line access to Composer. However, the Plesk control panel GUI allows for composer set up and management.
The easiest way to get started with the Georgia Tech branded version of Drupal 10 is to request an installation from OIT. You can select this option when requesting a new OIT Web Hosting account, which is usually the best way to go. In short, you would set up a new site in a new hosting account using a temporary domain name, and then once you have copied over all of your existing content, you would shut down your old site and repoint your real domain name to the new hosting account.
Note
If this sounds a little too technical for you, you should consult with your local IT support staff, who should be able to help you through anything concerning domain names and repointing them.
Georgia Tech Migration Roadmap
Beyond PHP support, each Georgia Tech unit website will need several extra components to be fully usable. The following table is an attempt to start tracking the status of the components needed for Georgia Tech Drupal 9 sites, and it will be updated as releases and additional information come available.
| Component Name | Available for Drupal 10? | Comments? |
|---|---|---|
| Georgia Tech Web Theme | Yes | An official Institute Communications Drupal 9 theme is available. Please see the Georgia Tech Web Theme section for more information on the status of Drupal 10 theme development. |
| GT Account Authentication | Yes | CAS module v1.0 is fully usable and CAS configuration instructions are available. |
| Mercury News and Events | Yes | An official port of the official Hg Mercury is available. It uses a feeds approach (creating nodes for each news or event item) that is different from the Drupal 7 module approach. Testing in a development environment is recommended to gain familiarity with how to configure and manage the Drupal 10 module. |
| GT Content Types | No | Vertical, Horizontal, and Multipurpose page types are not going to be ported to Drupal 8. Such pages will have to be rebuilt in Drupal 8+. Alternative page layout systems include:
|
| GT Drupal Express (DX) | No | A Drupal 10 installation is available for Drupal 10 websites installed through OIT Web Hosting - GT Drupal Express (DX) for Drupal 9. Please note that this is not be a direct replacement (or direct upgrade path) for existing Drupal 7 DX sites. Drupal 7 DX developers should plan for a manual content migration to Drupal 10, as it is unlikely that a script will be developed to aid DX migrations to Drupal 10. A Drupal Express migration strategy guide is under development. |
| Web Forms | Yes | The traditional Webform module was been completely rewritten for Drupal 8 and is much more capable (and more complex) than the old version. Existing users should treat it like a new product and go through all available getting started and training guides and videos before trying to build a form with Drupal 10. Drupal 9 itself comes with a limited Contact Form functionality and a handful of contrib modules (such as Contact Storage) are available to extend that functionality, though not to the level found in the traditional Webform module. Contact forms are recommended for simple RSVP and feedback forms. |
Complete Migration Process
Kevin Pittman has posted a guide to migrating from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 that includes a lot of planning tips and technical details.