Decoupled Drupal as a Solution
Today’s driving force is innovation and not customization. There are a lot of digital trends that are spreading more rapidly than others, of which Drupal’s Decoupled architecture has now become the new buzzword. These days, it is mandated for websites to be more dynamic and interactive. Hence moving to decoupled architecture could prove to be very beneficial for businesses.
The content presentation layer (the webpage) has changed and developed a lot over the years. A content author’s work is to not just create engaging content but to make sure that it is available across different channels and of course, made completely user friendly.
While Decoupled Architecture negates many of the issues associated with traditional Drupal Architecture, it is necessary for every business to analyze the core purpose of their website, map it to their current architecture and identify future digital & IT goals that need to be achieved. This could help in consciously identifying the scenarios to be decoupled.
The main purpose of decoupling the architecture revolves around the fact that the front-end developers will have the power to fully control an application. (I.e.) different content layers can be managed separately with a completely agnostic presentation layer. The front-end rendering layer and the backend CMS is connected by an API as some of the front-end components are rendered by a system other than Drupal.
Drupal offers Decoupling in 2 ways:
After analyzing & understanding a website’s needs (developer and editorial), the most appropriate architecture can be implemented. Having recently concluded a rebranding initiative, A global CPG giant with a content-heavy website was looking to rearchitect its current ecosystem to support seamless content updates and 3rd party integrations. Ameex suggested for progressively decoupled architecture as a compelling approach for businesses that want to easily create/update content as well as provide a dynamic user experience. This will improve overall performance and time to market. Thanks to the drag and Drop panel-based model that is available in Drupal’s core, the team enjoyed working in a simplified workflow and the company’s ROI increased phenomenally.
Another manufacturing business was looking to revamp their current ecosystem and make it more dynamic and user-friendly laying a strong foundation for digital transformation in the future. They wanted the snappy feel of modernized web applications. Their present website had a lot of static content and very minimal content workflow. They also required very heavy front-end support (Support to manage the presentation layer) Thus, Ameex suggested that they go ahead with a fully decoupled architecture approach that would help them make their website more dynamic as well as handle the front-end with ease. This approach really helped increase the website engagement, time to market and paved a strong path for seamless future digital enhancements.
1. Progressively Decoupled
2. Fully Decoupled
Progressively Decoupled:
The best of both worlds; Progressively Decoupled allows for simultaneously using Drupal’s rendering system and JavaScript Frameworks like Angular and React to provide a rich user experience. JavaScript is used to deliver a highly interactive user experience by rendering various block components separately. This creates a more dynamic user experience.
This architecture is very effective for both the content editors and the Developers as many Drupal core features like content workflow, site preview, etc. remain usable.
Some of the benefits of Progressively decoupled include:
· Content Syndication: Write once, Publish Anywhere (Omni Channel User Experience)
· Separation between layers: (Presentation layer and back-end rendering layer- Gives more control to the front-end developers)
· User-centric User experiences: Interactive JavaScript Layer
· Retaining Core Drupal Features
Fully Decoupled:
This creates full separation between the presentation layer and other CMS aspects. This is appealing to developers who like to have complete control over the front-end system i.e. how and where the content appears. But the main downside of going with this approach is that most out of the box features like in-place editing, Layout Management, etc. needs to be rebuilt from scratch and cannot be leveraged from Drupal. Many important aspects of the theme layer will be lost by decoupling the front end.
Some of the benefits of Fully Decoupled include:
· Easy to integrate with 3rd party solutions
· Seamless Interactivity
· Highly Dynamic website user experience
Some of the drawbacks of this architecture include:
· More than one Tech stack will be involved (Additional Point of Failure in the architecture)
· Security & Input Sanitization
· Layout and Preview Management
· Performance
Conclusion:
Customers today, look for a highly interactive website that displays results in a jiffy. The decoupled architecture was conceived based on the theory that client-side rendering must be emphasized. Decoupled architecture is not for all websites though it has its own pros and cons. The ideal solution for many websites would be to adapt to progressively decoupled architecture as it combines the best of both worlds — Retains Drupal’s content management capabilities without compromising on the client-side framework. It is important for business leaders to understand the implications of a decoupled architecture and consequently the site’s architecture to mirror the business priorities.
