Drupal 8 Migration: It’s All About The Data

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Thought byRay Saltini
May 26, 2017
Drupal 8 Migration

Last week we released our latest white paper, 4 Reasons to Fast Track Your Move to Drupal 8. In it we talk about Drupal 8’s APIs, the inevitability of digital transformation, the freedom to design anytime, its strong and stable codebase and just how easy it has become to migrate from earlier versions of Drupal and other platforms.

Today we focus on Drupal 8’s powerful APIs

100 Million Reasons to Fast Track Your Move to Drupal 8

We are in the midst of a data revolution. Every website, marketplace, phone and sensor on a machine and every wearable on your person is collecting data every minute of every day. Last year Google used 100 million gigabytes of disk space just to index an estimated 30 trillion surface web pages. The trend toward code as a commodity and data becoming the real currency of the digital economy started years ago. Today’s winners are organizations that can master the ability to effectively access, parse, target and distribute data. Doing so is both the great challenge and promise of the digital economy.

The most significant factor in the distribution and commercialization of data has been the reimagining of the API (Application Programming Interface) and their rapid proliferation. Modern APIs enable organizations to collect, compute and monetize data, pivot and build cost effective customer centered product and service iterations.

"2017 is the year APIs help complete the transformation of organizations into truly digital enterprises."    Tom Smith, Dec. 20, 2016, Integration Zone

As Smith writes in API Trends for 2017, APIs are no longer considered to be separate products and instead will form the core of a platform upon which new development will occur. 

Enter Drupal 8

With 30 pre-built APIs shipping with Drupal 8, they do indeed form the core of a powerful application building platform that can help organizations free their data from the limitations of the browser.

The fastest way to help you understand the advantages of Drupal 8’s API infrastructure is to begin with its core RESTful Web Services API.  REST in core includes all your favorite CRUD operations to create, read, update and delete content entities including the ability to read configuration entities. For more information read this detailed overview of web service solutions in Drupal 8 by Acquia CTO and Drupal founder Dries Buytaert. 

Like what you saw in core REST? Next take a serious look at the core Migrate API and its supporting core modules. You’ll find that upgrading from Drupal 6, Drupal 7 and even other platforms will help you design a clear and straight forward path to getting your data into Drupal 8 where you can begin to take advantage of it’s full range of API goodness. Visit this overview on upgrading from Drupal 6 or 7 to Drupal 8 for a step by step peak at the process. 

Links to all of Drupal 8’s core modules are provided below. Let us know what you think and download our new Drupal 8 Migration white paper for more information.