Overview
The following FAQs relate to dates and deadlines for upgrading your GovCMS site to Drupal 9.
A list of all D9 FAQ topics can be found at GovCMS Drupal 9 upgrade FAQs.
1. When is Drupal 7 end-of-life?
Drupal 7 will be end-of-life on 28 November 2022. Official support for Drupal 7 will end on this date.
The official public service announcement from the Drupal Association can be found at: Extending Drupal 7’s End-of-Life - PSA-2020-06-24
Note: The end-of-life date was previously announced as November 2021 but was extended by 12 months due to Covid-19.
2. When is Drupal 8 end-of-life?
Drupal 8 will be end-of-life on 2 November 2021. Official support for Drupal 8 will end on this date.
Official details from the Drupal Association can be found at: What happens to Drupal 8 now that Drupal 9 has been released?
3. Why does D8 end before D7?
Drupal 9 is backward compatible with Drupal 8. This makes the upgrade path relatively easy.
Drupal 9 is not backward compatible with Drupal 7. This makes the upgrade path more complex and essentially requires a rebuild and migration.
This places a burden on many organisations on Drupal 7, especially not-for-profits, to find budget and time to execute a rebuild and migration project. The Covid-19 pandemic has made this even harder. This is why the Drupal Association, and by extension the security team, have shown grace and offered to ensure Drupal 7 security is maintained for an extra year.
The official statement from the Drupal Association can be found at: Extending Drupal 7’s End-of-Life - PSA-2020-06-24.
4. When should you upgrade?
GovCMS states that all Drupal 8 sites should aim to switch to Drupal 9 by the end of August 2021. All Drupal 7 sites should aim to switch to Drupal 9 by the end of August 2022.
GovCMS has provided its official roadmap and required upgrade deadlines at Drupal 9 roadmap.
5. When will GovCMS D9 be ready?
GovCMS has provided an official roadmap for the Drupal 9 distribution. Pre-release of the GovCMS D9 distribution will be available between January to March 2021 (quarter 1).
During this time a security assessment will be completed. Sites will not be able to launch until the security assessment is complete. Agencies can start their development with this pre-release version. Any updates made by GovCMS to the official distribution release will need to be retrofitted to your site build before go-live.
The security-accredited GovCMS D9 distribution will be released between April and July 2021. All Drupal 8 sites should aim to switch to Drupal 9 by the end of August 2021.
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