Plone Upgrade - the process of migrating from old Plone versions to the latest ones. The migration is rather multifaceted, since it involves preliminary analysis of your project with the emphasis on code specifications, CSS, custom content types, etc. Quintagroup ensures professional approach to each of the preliminary stages in order to ultimately come up with desirable results.
You can look through Plone Upgrade Guide to get a general idea as well as step-by-step instructions on how to upgrade your Plone. If you need more detailed information on some of the questions that might arise and get a prompt quote on your particular issues after contacting us, then read on.
Quintagroup can help you with migrating from old Plone versions to any of the latest Plone releases. With Plone Upgrade Services from Quintagroup you will be able to upgrade your site without unnecessary cost or effort.
Over the past years, Plone has seen number of major releases - Plone 2.1, Plone 2.5, Plone 3, and finally Plone 4.0 as well as a number of minor releases coming in between. Every major release introduces significant new functionality and improvements, and new programming standards. That is why major version upgrades (e.g from Plone 3 to Plone 4) require significant work, especially programming work to ensure that your site functions properly after the upgrade.
Quintagroup currently supports customer's websites using all of these versions. We have many-years experience in upgrading clients' websites from/to any Plone versions.
Why upgrade?
Migrating old Plone-based site up to the latest version of Plone is a good thing to consider. There are many reasons why you should upgrade your Plone website:
- Stability. Plone is constantly going through code base improvement, bugs fixing and optimizations. If you do not upgrade your website then you risk to experience problems that were fixed in newer Plone versions.
- Compatibility. Web browsers and computers are improving every day and the code that was suitable for one version of browser, may not work on a newer one. So you need to upgrade Plone to ensure that all site viewers can see your site as it was intended.
- Functionality. Plone upgrade introduces new features for your website, such as new editing tools, content types, configuration options etc.
- Support. Keeping your website code updated makes it easier to support. As coding standards change and newer standards are introduced, it becomes more problematic to support older software. This results in extra hours (and money) spent on the work.
- Add-on Products. Plone add-ons are usually upgraded with every new Plone release. Once a new version of Plone is released, Plone community concentrates on developing add-ons supporting new Plone version, and usually cease improving Plone products for old versions. This might cause lack of add-on products for old Plone versions.
The Migration Process
Quintagroup usually starts migration process by overall analysis of the existing project. We review existing code against the specifications of the latest version of Plone in order to identify the elements that will need to be migrated, such as: CSS, custom content types, third-party products etc.
Following this research, Quintagroup puts together a detailed estimate related to the proposed migration. This usually includes a review of potential conflicts and/or recommended code updates.
How much it costs
This is difficult to answer generally and we really need to quote on each project individually, depending on how your site was first built. The more your site was customized the more difficult the upgrade.
We could not have found a more technically competent or reliable partner for Plone development and maintenance than Quintagroup.
K. K. Arora
President, Eogogics Inc (Washington D.C., USA)
How to get started
If you are thinking about upgrading your site to recent Plone release, contact us today for order and more details. If during site migration you also desire to find a new Plone hosting provider, please consider Quintagroup Plone/Zope hosting services.