About the client
“Roger Williams University (RWU) is a nationally recognized private university known for its diverse undergraduate and graduate programs. The university serves a broad audience, including students, faculty, alumni, and prospective applicants.”
RWU’s digital presence is central to engaging these communities and supporting academic and administrative operations. Ensuring platform stability, speed, and security is critical to maintaining a seamless online experience.
What we did?
Upgraded the website from Drupal 9 to Drupal 11 for long-term support
Streamlined page building with paragraph-based components
Improved site performance and Core Web Vitals
Preserved SEO equity with automated link checks and redirect management
Strengthened security and governance with CI/CD monitoring and SLAs
About the project
RWU needed a timely upgrade from Drupal 9 to Drupal 11 to mitigate security risks and improve performance. Challenges included slow content updates due to rigid page-building workflows, inconsistent site speed metrics, manual SEO checks, and a lack of standardized governance patterns for branding consistency.
We conducted deprecation scans, module readiness checks, and Composer updates. Using a blue/green deployment strategy with rollback rehearsals, we ensured a smooth transition. Paragraph-based components and a governed component library were introduced to allow editors to build pages faster. Performance was optimized with CDN caching, lazy loading, and an improved image pipeline.
- Faster site
Speed
- Quick Content
Updates
- Stronger
Security
Client’s challenge
RWU’s site was running on Drupal 9 and required a timely upgrade to stay secure and performant. The university needed to modernize its content authoring experience without disrupting its SEO performance or design consistency. Key pain points included:
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- Site Speed +48%, LCP 4.1s → 2.2s
- Core Web Vitals “Good” 92%
- Editors Build Pages 35% Faster
How the Features Impacted the Client’s Business
The Drupal 11 upgrade significantly enhanced RWU’s website performance, making pages load faster and providing a smoother user experience. Core Web Vitals improved, reflecting a more responsive and reliable site. Editors can now assemble pages more efficiently using reusable content components, streamlining content creation workflows.
Future upgrades have become simpler, reducing the effort required for maintenance and feature enhancements. With automated deployment strategies and robust monitoring in place, downtime risks have been minimized, creating a secure, stable, and future-ready platform. Overall, these improvements empower the digital team to deliver content with greater speed, consistency, and confidence.
