Comprehensive Website Migration for Standardbred Canada
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Project Overview:
Standardbred Canada is the official registry for Standardbred horses in Canada, dating back to 1909. They host an archival database with content from the early 1900s. The need for a fast-paced, scalable system brought them to SoftXPro for a critical website migration and enhancement project.
We migrated their website from Drupal 6 to Drupal 8, providing smooth access to all related data. By scaling their business model and integrating all pre-existing modules, we improved customer experience. Additionally, we developed a new auction module, increasing site traffic by 50% and capturing new demographics.
Later, the entire platform was migrated to the latest Drupal 10 version, enhancing performance and scalability. We also enhanced the UI design for a richer user experience and planned a future migration to Drupal 11 to keep up with the latest advancements.
Challenge:
Standardbred Canada’s website was running an outdated version of Drupal with several challenges, such us security risks, performance issues, and limited functionality. Security Risks: Outdated software has a number of vulnerabilities that might be exposed to reveal sensitive data.
Performance Issues: Their setup caused slower-than-normal load times and was generally providing a poorer user experience.
Limited Functionality: As the organization’s needs evolved, the limitations of the old platform became more evident in their inability to provide new features and services.
Our Solution
Phase 1: Migration to Drupal 8
SoftXPro was selected to migrate the Standardbred Canada website from Drupal 6 to Drupal 8. This phase involved:
Both, planning and execution were to be such that it helped in eliminating data corruption, and also in keeping downtime to a minimum. We used custom-developed scripts and migration tools to transfer the data in the most efficient way.
All the modules available were unified while maintaining the flair of being easy-to-use and systematic for the customers. We made functionalities with higher compatibility for the modules and with improved performance in comparison to modern standards.
Phase 2 : Enhancements and New Features
Once the migration completed, meandering over the enhancements and new feature developments for the site were determined:
We developed a custom Auction module that increased site traffic by 50%, resulting in new demographics. It included real-time bidding, auction items management, and user alerts.
Optimized database queries and caching strategies to jig up the site’s performance and speed.
We enhanced the security side by adding data encryption, and secure authentication, and performed a security audit on a regular basis in order to secure all the sensitive data.
Migration to Drupal 10
Being aware of the fact that there is always room for improvement, we successfully migrated our platform to the latest Drupal 10:
We have worked on enhancing the site performance, scalability, and maintainability using all the new features introduced in Drupal 10. We’ve worked to make full use of what Drupal 10 offers in its new theming engine and configuration management system for driving development and deployment processes in a smooth and seamless manner.
We ensured that the website was fully responsive, providing an excellent user experience on all devices. It is mobile-first, using modern CSS frameworks for responsive design.
Phase 4: Long-Term Planning
This is how far ahead we are preparing:
Redesigning the user interface, mainly focuses on enhancing a more general user experience. This should involve user research, wireframing, and iterative design testing.
Migration to Drupal 11, Being in tandem with technological progress, we set up a future migration to Drupal 11. Proper planning and testing will provide a smooth transition in this setup.
Technology Stack
The back-end involved the use of Drupal 6, Drupal 8, and now Drupal 10, with PHP and MySQL.
Front-end: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, Responsive Design
Development features of the product: Custom Drupal Modules, including DevOps (CI/CD pipelines, automated testing), Quality Assurance, Test Automation
Security measures to be taken: Data will be encrypted, proper care to be taken for secure authentication; having this in mind, security audits will be conducted regularly.
Performance optimization will take place mainly around database queries and caching strategies.
Project outcome and results:
Boosted Traffic: An auction module was integrated, significantly increasing traffic to the website—a 50% boost in traffic to be exact, allowing more visitors to be accrued and an increasingly higher rate of user engagement.
Improved performance: The migration to Drupal 10 increased performance and scalability; it provided a rock-solid base for further elaboration and growth.
Improved User Experience: Designed UI/UX design improvements that are in the works will bring user experience to a more intuitive and incentivized level while boosting user satisfaction.
Future-Proof Solutions: Ongoing work on Drupal 11 is intended to ensure that the platform remains at the forefront of technological improvements and ready to adopt new features and improvements.
Client Feedback
“SoftXPro’s helped us to scale our business model and enhance our customer experience, resulting in a 50% increase in out site traffic. They provide daily updates, lead regular meetings, and are receptive to feedback. Their accountability and effective communication stand out.”
— Director of IT Special Projects, Standardbred Canada