Areas of Expertise
We know Drupal inside and out.
As Drupal experts, we work fluidly with Drupal's API as well as the API's of numerous of its best contributed modules including Views and CCK. We use mastery of these API's to deliver to our clients exactly the system they need with a simple, intuitive interface. While we seek to keep our clients' expenses low by leveraging existing Drupal modules as much as possible, we write good, clean code when needed.
Site Architecture
The decisions made in the planning phase regarding how to structure the building blocks of a Drupal site are the key factors in creating a site which not only meets the goals at hand but does so in the simplest, most straightforward way. It also ensures a site with the best performance and security practices and one which is easiest to troubleshoot, add to, and upgrade in the future. When planning how best to tackle problems of any size, we seek simplicity; doing things the right way from the get-go and avoiding headaches in the future.
Performance Optimization & Scalability
Drupal scales beautifully, but as with any database driven application, scaling can be difficult. Zivtech’s developers are experts at Drupal optimization, scalability and server architecture. Some of the tools in our performance and optimization toolbox include:
- Memcached for Drupal caching
- Content Delivery Network configuration or static file serving
- MySQL tuning
- APC to make PHP faster
- Reverse proxy server configuration
- Use of Drupal’s caching API and other coding decisions
- Mastery of jQuery-based AJAX/AHAH functionality
Module Selection & Creation
Staying current with the state-of-the-art in Drupal module selection and best practices is an obsession with us, and we seek to never reinvent the wheel by writing custom code when we can leverage existing solutions instead. The creation of custom modules is a necessity for complex Drupal projects. We contribute these modules back to the community if the code can be useful to others. We strongly believe this is a mutually beneficial arrangement for our clients, us, and the community. We also write modules purely for contribution to the Drupal project. And we always follow Drupal Coding Standards and best practices, whether we are writing one line of custom code or creating an entire module for contribution.
New Features & Bug Fixes
Often the most sustainable way to create a needed functionality is to contribute new features to an existing module, and we choose this approach over creating a new module as much as possible. Submitting patches to Drupal modules is a regular part of our workflow, and we follow up on our patches to ensure that many are eventually committed to the project.
When using cutting-edge open source code contributed by thousands of developers, bugs will occasionally arise during site development. We are experts in squashing bugs, and routinely submit bug-fix patches back to the Drupal project to ensure that our clients launch bug-free sites.
Module Maintenance
We maintain the modules we contribute, often long after the related client work has been finished, as part of our responsibility to the community. We also voluntarily help maintain other Drupal modules; for example, Beauty Tips, Unfuddle API, and Embedded Media Field. By maintaining modules we build upon our expertise in the different sub-fields of Drupal, including media handling, usability, external integrations, and front-end experience. When Drupal undergoes a version upgrade, we additionally help maintain modules by upgrading them to the new version.
Diversity of Expertise
To stay challenged and grow our knowledge base we have worked on sites for many sectors: Non-profits and Community Groups, Start-up Web-based companies, E-commerce, Intranets, Arts & Music, Publishing, Video, Social Networking, Education, Science, Politics and Social Justice, Religious groups and more. We have personal backgrounds and connections in many of these areas and choose to work on projects which excite us and appeal to our interests.
