On January 24th, 2012, the Joomla Project released Joomla 2.5 - the next Long Term Support (LTS) release for the Joomla CMS. If you have a website currently built with Joomla 1.5, you should begin now to plan a migration to Joomla 2.5. Support for Joomla 1.5 will end later in 2012.

With this new release, many of the features you enjoyed in Joomla 1.5 have been improved and other new features have been added.  (See this release)  Extension developers have been working hard as well to update their software to include access to these new and improved features in Joomla 2.5. Now is a great time to upgrade your site and take advantage of what Joomla 2.5 has to offer.

Let Times Two Technology take the headaches out of doing your Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5 migration.  Our staff is very familiar with the Joomla 2.5 architecture and have worked with the Joomla Bug Squad to test the Joomla 2.5 system. They are very familiar with and help you prevent the "gotchas" you may encounter during a migration.

We offer the following migration services:

• Migration Review -  Starts with a 1 hour paid consultation with our migration experts to review your migration needs.
• Full Site Migration - We migrate the entire website from content, components, templates, etc.
• Content Only Migration - We migrate only the content from your Joomla 1.5 site into a new Joomla 2.5 site for you.
• Template Only Migration - We can migrate your Joomla 1.5 template to Joomla 2.5
• Content Verification and Repair - We review all site content and correct any issues found after content has been migrated to Joomla 2.5.
• SEF Review / SEF Repairs - We will work with you to maintain current SEF Url's after your migration.  This helps to retain your page rank in search engines.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I Migrate?

With all websites, the answer to this question is "It Depends". Each site owner needs to review their current situation and determine for themselves if they should migrate or not.  There are many factors that play into this decision.  Here are some factors to consider:

1. Support for Joomla 1.5 ends in September 2012.
2. Support for installed Extensions (Components, Modules, Plug-ins, Templates) will likely end as well in September 2012.
3. No further security fixes will be released for this product.  Any security issues found in Joomla 1.5 after EOL will not be fixed.
4. Newer features / functions of installed software will not be available to add to your Joomla 1.5 system.

How do I start?

Any changes to your website requires planning. A migration is no exception. You should review your site and plan the best way to perform the migration. You should also consider whether you want to do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you that has more experience with these migrations.

Once you've decided how you are going to migrate, you need to gather your information. This information will be needed by you or your migration expert to perform the migration.  Here is some suggested information that you should gather:

• Extension Inventory - a list of all extensions on your site with version numbers and vendor information
• Content Inventory - How many categories, articles, custom HTML modules, etc. exist on the site
• Hosting Information - Create a document with all the information that you will need such as where you are hosted, shared or dedicated hosting, login information, etc.
• Timeline for the migration

How long will a migration take?

This question truly depends on many factors. A migration of simple site could take less than a day. A migration of a more complex and involved site could take weeks. The following are some, but not all, factors that can affect the time it takes to perform a migration:

• Amount of content on the site that has to be verified after migration
• Number of extensions on the site and if tools exist to migrate those extension
• Number and type of menus and sub-menus. Some menu types require some tweaking after migration.
• Customized nature of your Joomla template - The more customized the longer it will take to convert that template
• Availabilty of extensions on your site
• Your ability to have time to review the site once migrated if done by an external vendor