Major Drupal Upgrade: Modernising Lotto NZ's Core Platform
Project Overview
Lotto NZ's digital platform was running on an early version of Drupal 8, which had become outdated and increasingly difficult to maintain. Working embedded within their development team, I executed a comprehensive upgrade to Drupal 11, bringing the platform up to modern standards while enhancing security and building robust API endpoints.
Challenges
The upgrade presented significant technical challenges:
- Migration from early Drupal 8 to latest Drupal 11 across a large, complex codebase
- Maintaining platform stability for a critical national service
- Meeting stringent security requirements for financial transactions
- Modernising legacy code and architectural patterns
- Zero-downtime requirement during migration
- Close collaboration required with the internal development team
Solution
We delivered a comprehensive platform modernisation:
Drupal Core Upgrade
The foundation of the project involved a systematic upgrade:
- Conducted thorough audit of existing codebase and custom modules
- Developed detailed migration strategy to minimize risk
- Updated all custom modules to comply with modern Drupal standards
- Refactored deprecated code and removed technical debt
- Implemented comprehensive testing at each upgrade milestone
- Executed staged rollout with rollback procedures
Security Hardening
Security was paramount for this financial platform:
- Implemented latest Drupal security best practices
- Enhanced authentication and authorization mechanisms
- Hardened API endpoints with robust access controls
- Conducted security audits and penetration testing
- Established automated security monitoring and alerting
- Implemented secure coding standards across the codebase
API Development
Built robust API endpoints to solidify the platform:
- Designed and implemented RESTful API endpoints
- Implemented proper versioning and backwards compatibility
- Built secure authentication layers for API access
- Optimized API performance and caching strategies
Team Collaboration
Working embedded within the Lotto NZ team was a key factor in the project's success:
- Integrated directly with the internal development team
- Worked closely alongside their developers to transfer knowledge
- Built strong working relationships that facilitated smoother implementation
- Provided hands-on mentoring on modern Drupal practices
- Collaborated on architectural decisions and technical approaches
- Ensured the team was fully equipped to maintain the upgraded platform
Results
The platform upgrade delivered substantial improvements:
- Successfully migrated from Drupal 8 to Drupal 11 with zero downtime
- Achieved 100% security compliance with financial industry standards
- Reduced technical debt and improved maintainability
- Established robust API infrastructure for future development
- Improved deployment confidence through automated testing
- Created foundation for ongoing platform evolution
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