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By Lullabot on
Migration of the Universal Kids CMS from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 in 2018, simplifying its architecture while maintaining functionality with a React application.
Why Drupal was chosen:
Drupal was selected for its flexibility and the ability to reuse and refactor modules, allowing Universal Kids to align with NBCUniversal's other brands and streamline their decoupled architecture.
Describe the project (goals, requirements and outcome):
The Universal Kids project, an ambitious venture by NBCUniversal, focused on migrating their digital platform from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8. This initiative was driven by the need to integrate the Universal Kids site more cohesively within NBCUniversal's broader digital ecosystem. The project required a detailed strategy to refactor and streamline the existing complex backend architecture, which was initially based on a combination of Drupal 7 and Java components. The primary goal was to simplify and unify the technical structure, making it more efficient and manageable while ensuring that key functionalities, especially those related to content delivery and media management, were maintained and enhanced.
The migration process posed significant challenges, particularly in preserving and enhancing the intricate API interactions crucial for seamless content delivery on the media-rich platform. The team focused on creating a robust and scalable solution that would meet the immediate requirements of Universal Kids and align with NBCUniversal's long-term digital strategy. The refactoring process involved careful planning and execution to ensure a smooth transition, with particular attention paid to the technical intricacies of combining Drupal 8's capabilities with the React frontend.
Upon successful completion, the new Universal Kids site emerged as a streamlined, efficient, and more user-friendly platform. The migration to Drupal 8 improved editorial workflows, offering greater flexibility and ease of use for content managers. The upgraded architecture also meant enhanced performance and scalability, aligning Universal Kids' digital presence with NBCUniversal's technical standards and future vision.
The Universal Kids project is a testament to strategic planning and technical expertise in CMS migration. It highlights the importance of aligning a brand's digital assets with its parent company's broader vision while ensuring the user experience remains front and center. The success of this project not only improved the operational aspects of the Universal Kids website but also reinforced the brand's position within the competitive digital landscape of media and entertainment.
Technical specifications
Drupal version:
Drupal 8.x
Key modules/theme/distribution used:
Why these modules/theme/distribution were chosen:
- Migrate let us migrate the existing D7 data into an exact API match in the new Drupal site.
- Serialization let us do some partial caching of API responses. Imagine you have a big API response with many nested sets of content and images. We were able to cache parts of each response, so if you updated the alt text on an image it didn't reset the cache for a whole API response.
- We used warmer after every deployment because why suffer first response slowness if you don't have to?
- Drupal Test Traits let us write API validation tests against existing content. We generated test cases from the existing API, run the migration, and then used DTT to see how close we were to "done" in the new API responses.
Community contributions:
Patches contributed and reviewed for entity embed, migrate tools, and purge.
Organizations involved:
Team members:
Sectors:
Entertainment
Media
