This message was sent to those who are owners or administrators of a website hosted on UW Shared Web Hosting infrastructure using one the following web domains: depts.washington.edu, staff.washington.edu, faculty.washington.edu or courses.washington.edu. (Sent specifically to webpub-announce@uw.edu; all non-student Shared Web Hosting Users)
Owners and administrators of content management systems like WordPress and Drupal and collaboration and documentation platforms like MediaWiki will be able to take advantage of significant performance improvements when UW Information Technology (UW-IT) upgrades the UW Shared Web Hosting servers that host University websites to PHP version 8.2.5 beginning August 1, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.
Additionally, over the next several weeks UW Information Technology will be migrating database servers to a new infrastructure with the most current version of MySQL, which will provide enhanced security and improved speed and performance.
How will this PHP upgrade affect your website?
If you do not use a database server, then the database server portion of this upgrade will not impact your website. If your website doesn’t use a content management system, documentation platform or PHP programming script, then this upgrade will not affect your website.
How will this PHP upgrade and server upgrade and migration affect your website?
Please review the below for information and action items to take before October 20, 2021, on PHP 8.2.5, as well as information on the potential effects of the server upgrade and migration on your website.
- Current versions of popular web applications like WordPress and Drupal, fully support PHP 8.2.5. Note that these and newer versions of these all support PHP 8.1.5: WordPress 4.9+, Drupal 7.71+, and MediaWiki 1.35+.
- If the website does not have the current version of WordPress and Drupal, then the owner/administrator may want to test PHP 8.2.5 on the website in our test environment before August 1, 2023.
- We recommend you review the list of changes to functions in PHP 8.2.5 and how to access the test environment.
- If you are unfamiliar with working with PHP script and a test environment, then UW Information Technology recommends that you consult with your local IT or your local web developer for support. (If your area does not have either of these positions, you can reach out to Creative Communications to inquire about hiring web development support).
Questions?
If you have questions about this planned database migration, please contact help@uw.edu and reference UW Web Hosting Upgrade in your subject line.
Peter White
Service Owner
UW Shared Web Hosting