There has been a lot of talk about the decoupled architecture in the market lately and quite frankly, it is not without reason. After all, such an architecture enables every single component to execute its assigned tasks individually by separating the front-end and the back-end to self-contain their functionalities. This, in turn, allows companies to publish reusable content that is also simple to share across different channels. It also ensures top-notch performance, alleviates the need for undertaking redesigns in the future, etc.

Drupal, as you might be aware is one of the greatest web development platforms. It presents decoupling options with its hub and spoke model. The integration includes all the different spokes (delivery channels) in a single hub (Drupal back-end). Interestingly, the decoupling approach empowers Drupal to make applications future-ready that can be exposed on various channels and have a faster user request-response time.

While decoupled Drupal may seem like all the rage right now, it is imperative to understand that it may not necessarily be a good idea for your business. There are very specific circumstances when decoupling Drupal is warranted. To see if it is required in the context of your organization, one must first seek to understand precisely why one believes that decoupling is required. And to do that, here are some questions the team charged with the decision must ask itself:
1. Does the website need to be scalable?
2. Does the content need to be presented on various platforms, including mobile, web, etc.?
3. Is one of the project requirements exposed data via a specific technology?
4. Does the team charged with responsibility for the process have the necessary skills to successfully implement an architecture that involves a complicated architecture?
You can go ahead and opt-in for the decoupled architecture as long as your answer to all of these questions was ‘yes’.

Wait, we are not done yet; while the aforementioned questions are indeed enough to give you a quick idea of whether decoupling Drupal would be a good idea or not, one must remember that the decision is a technical one. Hence, it is equally important to understand if it is a technically-sound decision. Other factors you need to consider are the risk, the return on investment, etc. Hence, it is also important to keep the following considerations in mind before taking a final call:
• The team that will help implement the decoupled architecture possesses the necessary skills and comprises React JS and/or Angular experts too. Just having Drupal developers in the team will not suffice.
• The decoupled approach would indeed be a good idea if you need to give Drupal exclusive ownership of the data.
• To ensure the success of the process, the company must have a hosting provider who can host a non-Drupal front-end as well.
• Finally, you can rest assured that decoupling Drupal is indeed a good idea if the data must be exposed to multiple platforms.
The decision to implement a decoupled architecture may seem like a tough one to figure out, but trust us when we say that it is well worth the effort. That is not to say that there are no problems or challenges associated with it at all, but provided you take the time to carefully consider the decision in the specific context of the project at hand, you can rest assured that you will be able to successfully arrive at the requisite decision.

Now, if you have done the groundwork and are sure that you can indeed go ahead with it, your next step should be to start looking for an expert custom Drupal web application development service provider. So, what are you waiting for?

Author's Bio: 

Kaushal Shah manages digital marketing communications for the enterprise technology services provided by Rishabh Software.