Drupal and its Benefits

What is Drupal

The importance of Drupal becomes evident with the fact that the website of Whitehouse, the largest democratic institution of the United States is powered by this. For those who are new to this term Drupal is an open source content management system written in PHP which is being used almost in 1.5% of total websites and blogs available across the globe.

History

The history dates back to 2000 when 3 students from the University of Antwerp in Belgium started sharing a message board over the internet. Eventually this message board became online and emerged as a testing ground for a new revolutionary web-technology. The software is open source means is free to use and users need not have to pay any licensing fees, hence anyone could use it and test it. The software is currently owned by Dries Buytaert.

Requirements to install Drupal

This open source content management system can be easily installed on a web-server running on Apache or Microsoft. The installation requires MySQL or similar database server and PHP as a scripting language. Webistes or blogs which are running on a third party web-hosting system should ensure that the hosting company is adequately configured to support Drupal.

Competitors

Drupal is one of the three open-source content management systems which are widely used in the Internet world. The highest rung of the ladder is occupied by Word-press and Joomla is another strongest contender of Drupal. However, there are many other third party packages available out there but these three are being widely used and appreciated across the globe.

Advantages of Drupal

Although Word-press is the most preferred open source content management system used by webmasters and developers across the globe nonetheless Drupal is gaining traction these days and is being considered as the leader of the future content management system. It has a lot of advantages over other open source platforms available out there here are some of them

•It is easy to install maintain and work on. The platform can be used very easily by even those who are non-techies and devoid of technical knowledge.

•Non-technical users don’t have to rely upon any designer or programmer to edit or make any kind of required changes.

•Since it doesn’t require any technical expertise it makes your business cost-effective and less cumbersome.

•Drupal is scalable, customizable and adaptable to meet any kind of software environment.

•Support and up gradation of the software is completely free

•Drupal is available with various plug-in modules to suit a vast variety of applications.

•Drupal content management system can easily be used for any third party tools and applications

•Last but not the least benefit of Drupal is that the software can be operated in any language making its use more flexible

How to install and download Drupal

Check the system requirement: this is the first step in the whole process of downloading and installing Drupal. Web-masters and developers should ensure their web-hosting service provider meets all the requirements to support this content management system. A web space of 3 MB is enough and adequate in installing a Drupal content management system. The web server should run either in Apache or Microsoft IIS. The database that will be utilized should be MYSQL and the script should be written in PHP.

Download the best Drupal version: This is the second step that is going to be used by web developers wherein the best suitable version of Drupal should be downloaded so as to meet all your requirements. The version can be downloaded either in ZIP file or in TAR file. If your server is running in a Unix system then downloading the file in TAR is advisable.

Extract all your files

Extracting all the necessary files and directories into a new folder is the next step in the whole process.If your computer is running in MS window then the ZIP file will automatically open in file manager otherwise it needs to be placed in a suitable location.

Install the extracted files

Installing the Drupal files will be the next step wherein webmasters and developers need to go to “sites” and then to “default” in the folder where the files have been installed. Go to the the “default.settings.php” file, and create a copy, rename the new copy “settings.php.” The step is followed by changing the permission of the site and then creating appropriate database for the same.