Drupal 9 is scheduled to be released in June 2020, and organizations are in dire need of an upgrade from Drupal 7 and 8 to version 9.

Drupal 8 will be decommissioned in November 2021, and Drupal 7 will be decommissioned in 2022. Those who opt to remain with older versions of the software may encounter security issues down the road.

Are you looking forward to the procedure but are unsure of what to expect? This detailed tutorial seeks to simplify the entire Drupal migration procedure in order to make it more straightforward to implement.

Are you planning to upgrade to Drupal 9? To deliver a smooth Drupal 9 upgrade process, read the following article.

Starting the Migration Process is the first step.
As part of the transition from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7, the previous database is converted to the Drupal 7 structure. If, on the other hand, the site is being updated from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8, a different strategy will be taken.

Step 1: in upgrading from D7 to D8 is to make a backup of your website.

Create a local copy of your website to use as a preliminary step for the migration process. Owing to the fact that making changes to a live site is not encouraged, it is standard protocol to keep all data safe by creating a backup locally on your computer.

Step 2: Establish a brand new website.

Installing a new Drupal 8 site is just as simple as downloading and installing the most recent edition of Drupal from drupal.org.

Install the most recent edition of Drupal 8, as well as any dependencies, utilizing Composer’s command-line interface.

Step 3: Configuring your Drupal 8 website for migration is crucial.

Generate a new Drupal 8 website on your computer that will operate as the destination website for the migration process throughout the setup phase.

Step 4: Validate that the modules are in the core and are enabled.

On your Drupal 8 site, examine to see whether the Migrate, Migrate Drupal UI, and Migrate Drupal modules have been enabled. This may be achieved by navigating to the ‘Extend‘ page of your website and guaranteeing that all of the modules mentioned above are present in the core of your website.

At this stage, choose the three modules you want to use and click the ‘Install‘ option at the bottom of the page.

Step 5: Implement changes to your website.

Go to your website and attach the website address with /upgrade (for example, www.yourwebsitename.com/upgrade), then follow the on-screen guidelines. Now click on ‘Continue’ button to resume.

Step 6: Eventually, there is indeed a final step. Enter the URL of your website.

Once you click on ‘Continue,’ the screen below emerges, which asks you for your website credentials, database location, and other vital information.

Step 7: Initiate the migration process.

If the database credentials from your source database are valid, the upgrade review page will appear on the Migrate UI. Otherwise, the upgrade review page would not display. It will show a summary of the upgrade status for all modules which have been installed on the old site.

A site builder should carefully review the modules that will not be upgraded and evaluate if their Drupal 8 site will continue to function effectively without the module in concern.

After that, click on the “Perform Upgrade” option.

Tip: Do not proceed with the actual upgrade unless you have first installed the Drupal 8 module that was previously missing.

Tip: If you obtain ID conflict warnings, you must examine more.

It is conceivable that the migration process will overwrite a node that’s been manually added to the Drupal 8 site before upgrading if the source Drupal 6/7 site currently includes a node with the same ID as the node which has been manually updated to Drupal 8.

Conflicting IDs will be detected, and a warning about conflicting IDs will be displayed. This warning can be ignored at the risk of losing data, or the process can be cancelled and an alternate strategy taken.

Because of the size and types of content/configuration on the source site, the upgrade may take an extremely long period of time to accomplish. Once the procedure is complete, you will be directed to the site’s home page, where you will see the following messages describing the results:

Upgrading Drupal 8 to Drupal 9

When it comes to transitioning from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9, the process is much more uncomplicated. The truth that D9 is an improved version of D8 makes it much easier to switch. Read the whole guide to upgrading from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 to gain a comprehensive understanding of the process.

Alternative Method: Migration through the use of the Drush command
When migrating complex sites, upgrading to Drupal 8 using Drush is beneficial since it allows you to run migrations one at a moment and to perform rollbacks if necessary.

If you are using Composer to build your Drupal 8 site, it is possible that Drush is already installed on your system. However, if this is not the case, you can install Drush from the command line using the following command:

Drush and Drush are required by composer.

Regarding Drush to operate reliably, you should first download and enable the contributed modules, which would include Migrate Upgrade, Migrate Plus, and Migrate Tools.

Maintain Drush’s latest iteration (using the command “drush –version”) by running it.

It is now time to initiate the migration process using Drush by running the following drush command.

“drush:/user:password@server/db —:/example.com –configure-only” is an example of a configuration-only command.

Where the values mentioned below can be used in combination with the values specified in the preceding command

-The username of the source database is indicated by the string ‘user‘.
-The source database is named ‘password.’ the password of the user
-‘server‘ relates to the database server that is being used as a source.
-The database named ‘db’ is the source database.

Check the status of your migration (using the command “drush migrate-status“) at this point.

Import the data by using command “drush migrate-import –all” to complete the transaction.

To assess the condition of a successful migration, navigate to structure->migrations once it has been finished.

To view the entire migrated data, click on the list migration button next on the migration group ‘import from Drupal 7‘ to the right of the screen.
After clicking on the link, all of the upgraded information will be visible. The data will be imported once you click on the run button.
You will be led to a webpage that contains the options specified below once you have clicked on the “Execute” button.

Migration can be difficult; however, Drupal experts such as HelptoInstall can help you navigate the complexities of the process. Take a look at our Drupal solutions. Please get in touch with us if you need assistance getting started with the latest Drupal version.