Ray Saltini - Director, Center of Excellence, FFWDavid Hernandez - Manager of Learning and Contributions,
FFWRon Northcutt - Senior Solutions Architect, Acquia
Built for Integration: Why Drupal 8 Should Be the Glue to Your Stack
Why are we here?
WHY DRUPAL?
Highly Scalable Mobile-First SecurityIntegrated Digital Applications
Easy Content Authoring
Flexible Content Architecture
Tools for Business, with No Limitations
Multisite
Strong Stack Foundation
Content as a Service MultilingualCommunity of Talent and Experience
Integrated Digital Applications
Existing Pain Points• Divergent systems• Multiple authentication systems• Multiple marketing channels• The stress and cost of maintaining multiple stacks• Administrative overhead and complex reporting
How does Drupal 8 solve these problems?
More Robust API• Views UI for GET requests• Serialization formats (json, xml, hal_json, etc.)• Authentication methods (cookie, basic http, oauth, etc.)
• Unsafe methods & CSRF protection (X-CSRF-Token request header)• Custom REST plugins
• Configuration per resource -or- per method• Respects Drupal permission settings (GET, POST, etc.)
More Robust Caching• Cacheability metadata
• Tags - dependencies for granular purging (eg. node:46)• Contexts - variations based on request (analogous to vary header)• Max-age - time-based (analogous to max-age header)
• Practical abstraction• Render caching (fragments/render arrays)• Response caching (response object)
• Usually “just works”
Symfony Framework• Reduces developer fatigue/training/recruiting• Twig templating engine
• Safer and easier to work with• Fully OOP modern framework• Dependency injection• Routing, sessions, services, event dispatcher, and more• YAML files for CMI• “Proudly not invented here”
Powerful Toolsets• Symfony tools like Console
• Drupal console for code scaffolding• Docksal and CIBox• Composer• Configuration management system• Pipeline systems• Waterwheel SDK• GraphQL
Powerful, flexible data• Structured data• Flexible, swappable data store• Query building• Data imports• Decoupled rendering
Security• Single point of entry• Fewer systems to maintain• Fewer user accounts• Walled off stack systems
Drupal Itself• Security advisories and policies• Robust notifications• Many eyes and many hands
Real-world Examples
Powdr Resorts• Drupal backend for content and data• Angular front end• Component integrations with other
data sources (weather, business data)• Heavy use of REST API• Custom entities
Transportation Authority• From a major metropolitan city• Controlling digital signage• Manage content• Schedule information• In real time on all the screens
Princess Cruise• Guests to send messages to each
other• Plan their day's events, activities,
& shore excursions• Review the ship's itinerary &
port guides• Browse restaurant menus & make
reservations• Access their stateroom accounts• Book shore excursions• Central content repository that can be
shared across ships.
ResultsDivergent Systems
Multiple authentication
Marketing channels
Maintenance/development
Administrative overhead
Robust API ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
Robust Caching ✅ ✅
Symfony Framework
✅ ✅
Data Store ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
Security ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
Thank You!
