Time to go back to the drawing board
In 2017 whilst the Drupal 7 solution was still performing robustly, the monolithic architecture hampered flexibility. Approach to front and and content management varied, leading to technical complexity and inconsistency in user experience. The University backed the business case of going back to the drawing board.
Fast forward to today and the new platform, running from a common code base powered by Pantheon, enables the University to maintain a fleet of standards compliant sites where deployments can happen daily without interruption or service. Indeed 150+ sites were upgraded from Drupal 9 to 10 in less than an hour.
The right plan and the right team
Billy’s talk, a retrospective of strategies, technical approach and best practices employed to reach this goal is certainly essential for any large organisation embarking upon a similar digital transformation.
Maintaining a fleet of high performance sites
With over 1500 website under*.ed.ac.uk, some over 10 years old, managed by 1500 editors Billy explained how essential it was firstly how the university assembled the right team to take the project on, what style of procurement they took, where to draw on external skills to augment internal capability.
Shoulder to shoulder with respected global peers
Billy said one of the resounding benefits of Drupal is the opportunity to consult and share with peer organisations across the globe also using the platform.
