Website Maintenance

Actually, that should be "Drupal website maintenance" since we work primarily in Drupal and currently offer this service for Drupal-based websites only.

The process of "creative destruction," while familiar to economists (after all, it was made famous by economist Joseph Schumpeter), might not be immediately recognizable to the rest of us but it is a process that is alive and well on the internet - in fact, it dominates all things web.

What this cool sounding term basically means is "out with the old and in with the new." Old technologies become stale and eventually stop working as they are replaced with (hopefully) better versions. Even new technologies must endure constant tweaking and bug fixing.

In a nutshell, the process of website maintenance means keeping your websites code up with the times in an environment that is constantly in flux.

While we specialize in Drupal, the basic concepts outlined below hold true for WordPress, Joomla!, vBulletin or any platform custom, open source, or commercial on the market. In other words, website maintenance is not something that is unique to Drupal and is something you should budget for if you don't feel as if you are experienced enough to do it yourself.

In the world of Drupal, there are a few different forms of maintenance that are needed, some minor, some major:

• Optional updates - when a module or the Drupal core has been improved which is usually optional but should still be undertaken every quarter or so;
• Critical updates - when a major flaw has been located (typically a security flaw that can make your site vulnerable to hackers) and requires immediate attention.
• Upgrades - an upgrade is needed when a major new version comes out (and that is often not backwards compatible with previous versions), upgrading from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 or Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 would be examples. If you are running Drupal 5, it's time to upgrade to 6 since 5 is no longer supported.

Drupal 6 and Drupal 7 are very user friendly in terms of updates. Even a layperson should be able to run basic updates. It's often as easy as copying and pasting the new code over the old or even running automated update scripts (such as in Drupal 7). That said, because every site is unique in its configurations, combination of contributed code, complexity, traffic, design, hosting environment, etc. all updates come with some measure of risk of the site crashes or losing functionality. Updates that require changes to the database come with added risk that you might lose data. The more complicated your site is, the mode modules you use, and especially if you've engaged in customizations or even core hacks (not recommended) the need for expert care during updates becomes even more important.

Green Crescent can update and upgrade sites on a regular basis as a regular service or on a per need basis. We can also apply security patches as needed. We offer this service free with our web hosting plans.