You've invested in Drupal as the technology for your web platform. You're ready for the next phase in its evolution (like adding new features). But you're wondering what's the best option between upgrading your current Drupal 7 installation or migrating to Drupal 8, and are not sure how to make that decision. This session will compare the pros and cons of each path so that you can make a clear decision for your organization.

1. Should you upgrade
your Drupal 7 website or
migrate to Drupal 8?
DrupalCamp Montreal 2017 – Symetris.ca

2. Today’s agenda
1. About Symetris
2. Why this question is important
3. Differences (and similarities) between D7 & D8
4. What factors can influence your decision?
Risks and benefits of each scenario
5. Conclusion

3. Prologue
About Symetris

4. Unlock your web potential
with Symetris
***
• Founded in 2004 – 13 years ago!
• 17 experts (most certified devs in Qc)
• Masters of Drupal since “Drupal 5”
• Regular Drupalcamp presenters and
sponsors

5. Our team

6. Brad Muncs
President @ Symetris
About me

7. Chapter 1
Staying with D7 or moving to D8:
Why the question is important

8. I’m starting with a few assumptions
○ You have already invested in Drupal 7
■ So I don’t need to convince you that Drupal is cool
○ You want to maintain or evolve your existing
platform or website
○ You’re looking for an answer in “business
speak”, not in technobabble

9. Elements that impact your decision
○ What is the best ROI?
■ Cost/time of effort vs return
○ How much time will this take to implement?
○ Will there be any changes to flexibility, stability
or durability?
○ Will it be easier to maintain content for site
administrators
○ Will it be easier to maintain code for
developers?

10. The answer, of course is:
IT DEPENDS
The goal of this presentation is to help you make the
right decision for your organization based on your
specific context.
I want to help you identify the elements that will
influence your decision.

11. Chapter 2
Differences (and similarities)
between D7 and D8

12. Maturity
○ Drupal 7 was launched in January 2011
○ Drupal 8 was launched in November 2015
○ (That’s 5 years apart.)

13. Technical enhancements in D8
○ Easier configuration management
■ Better deployments and more sophisticated maintenance
○ Cleaner code
■ Uses Symfony and more object-oriented code
○ More modules are “core” in D8
■ Including “view” and “multilingualism”

14. Business enhancements in D8
○ Easier to edit content
○ Mobile backend (for editing on the fly)
○ Better language/multilingual support
○ More digiral ecosystem integrations
○ Faster deployments
○ Better performance and scalability
○ “Content as a service” easy to implement

15. Chapter 3
Factors that can influence
your decision:
risks and benefits for
both scenarios

16. Factors that influence risk & benefits
○ Current D7 Setup
○ Quantity and complexity of data
○ Budget (time & money)
○ Scope of upcoming enhancements
○ Projected lifetime of existing website
○ Completely new/standalone project?

17. Chapter 4
Conclusion:
best cases for
both scenarios
(stay D7 vs go D8)

18. Stay with D7 if you:
○ Aren’t planning any major enhancements
○ Are planning a complete redesign within the
next 2 years (wait to move to D8 then)
○ Have lots of custom-developed modules,
custom workflows or interactions with external
systems/data
○ Need to deploy very quickly (weeks)
○ Need to keep the budget as light as possible in
the short term (might be higher in long run)

19. Upgrade to D8 if you:
○ Have important new features to add
○ Need to guarantee ongoing support for 5+ yrs
○ Regularly update content or use multiple
languages (easier in D8)
○ Have a “low complexity” website
○ Can invest more time and money upfront (to
reduce the cost down the line)
○ Have frequent deployments (easier in D8)
○ Have high requirements for performance and
scalability
○ Are starting a new project

20. Merci !
Any questions?
Contact us at
info@symetris.ca
Presentation soon available on Slideshare
PS: We’re looking for Drupal developers! Send your CV!