D7 & D8 go End of Life in 2021 - What does that mean, and what are my options?

Over a million websites rely on Drupal 7 & D8, and both reach the end of life (EOL) in 2022 (extended from 2021). Their popularity, combined with potentially difficult upgrade paths for D7 in particular, has site owners asking why this is happening, what it means for them, what they can do about it, and when they need to deal with all this.

Upon reaching EOL, the drupal.org automated testing for D7 & D8, which is critical for development & updates, will be turned off and there will be no more official releases, bug fixes, security team patches, etc. To ensure organizations that rely on these platforms can continue to securely run, operate, and build on top of their applications, a select number of organizations will be authorized to provide paid commercial support through an official Drupal 7 Vendor Extended Support (D7ES).

Vendor Extended Support started when Drupal 6 was designated EOL around 5 years ago. To date, only 2 organizations, including Tag1, have been authorized to provide commercial support services for legacy versions of Drupal.

In this essential DrupalCon session, join the team from Tag1, for a deep dive on the following topics:

-What is Drupal End of Life (EOL), why should I care, & what does it mean to me?
- Millions of websites depend on D7 & D8, why are they doing this?
- It goes beyond Drupal... PHP & Symfony have versions going EOL too??
- OMG is this drupalgeddon?! What can I do? Do I have options?
- Does this mean I have to pay for support to continue using Drupal?
- What does Drupal 7 Vendor Extended Support (D7ES) entail and do for me?
- D8 is going EOL too, but there is no D8 Vendor Extended Support?!? Really?
- Is D7ES a stopgap to buy me some time, or is it a viable long term solution?
- How much longer can I put off dealing with all this?

We’ll leave time at the session for Q&A to ensure you get the information you need to continue to successfully run and operate your Drupal sites.

Learning Objectives
Attendees will come away from this session with an understanding of what EOL means for Drupal and the software (e.g., PHP, Symfony) that Drupal depends on, and how it impacts their Drupal sites.
Attendees will understand the options that are available to them, enabling them to prepare for and execute the strategy that works best for them before the EOL deadline.
Attendees will understand what Vendor Extended Support is, if and how it will meet their needs, and what they need to do to have it in place when they need it.

Target Audience
This session is for anyone who currently owns, runs, or operates Drupal 7 and D8 sites that will still be online in 2021 and beyond. Though a portion of this talk will cover technical concepts, it has something for everyone.

Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites, you’ll learn everything you need to know about the topics in this session.

*Session Materials*