Types of maintenance

Maintaining a Drupal site can take many forms. Drupal itself is always evolving. Changes can be very frequent because they span releases in all projects of a Drupal application, including core and contributed projects. Releases can even happen based on project dependencies, so changes to Drupal application code can be very frequent. Drupal also runs on a platform stack with physical infrastructure built on software that also evolves. It is also common for content to require maintenance, such as when new staff is hired at a company and the staff listing is no longer up to date. Content management activities are covered in Chapter 14. This chapter covers how to effectively maintain a Drupal application.

Code-related maintenance

Drupal projects often put out new releases, and those managing Drupal applications need a strategy for this. Releases can come in the form of major and minor releases. The semantics around major and minor are intentional. Major implies...