Tasman District Council future-proofs community hub
The Tasman District Council partnered with Catalyst to upgrade their Silverstripe CMS, migrate to secure cloud hosting, and maintain uninterrupted site access throughout.
Background
The Tasman District Council's public website is an important hub for Tasman residents and visitors, providing essential information on the full range of council services. Services include river levels and rainfall data, road works updates, and more. Yet the stability and security of the site were at risk given the underlying framework (Silverstripe 4) and the hosting platform on which it was hosted were nearing end of life (EOL).
For a number of years, Catalyst had supported the Tasman District Council (TDC) with their legacy system, and they had an additional vendor providing hosting support. TDC was after support from a single vendor who could set them up on a stable, future-proof platform with ongoing hosting support.
Opportunity
With Silverstripe 4 nearing end of life, Catalyst recommended TDC upgrade proactively, highlighting the risks of an outdated platform. Catalyst also suggested Catalyst Cloud as a managed hosting solution to ensure the public still had access to resources during the transition and they would retain sovereignty over their data. Tasman District Council decided to extend their partnership with Catalyst, with Catalyst now their only vendor for the site.
Solution
Catalyst and TDC worked closely together to ensure there were no interruptions to public access to the site during migration and upgrade. After a deep dive into the complexities of the existing website, the content migration and upgrades went smoothly. The transition was as simple as a press of a button because of Catalyst’s Cove solution running on Catalyst Cloud.
We worked with Catalyst to upgrade to the latest version of Silverstripe CMS and to migrate our hosting to [Cove on] Catalyst Cloud. The project was delivered on time and budget.
Vivian, Andy, and the wider Catalyst team were great to work with. There was clear and regular communication including a quick weekly catch-up. Any issues that arose were dealt with quickly and collaboratively meaning the whole project ran very smoothly.”
- Ali Hamblin, Digital Content Lead, Tasman District Council
Results
The website was successfully migrated to the latest stable version of Silverstripe CMS with the project meeting all timelines and budget requirements. Since upgrading to the latest version of Silverstripe and migrating to Catalyst Cloud, TDC has shared the following improvements:
Enhanced performance: The Tasman site's uptime since launching on Cove has been 99.99%
Zero downtime: Resources remained accessible throughout migration and the upgrade.
Secure and scalable cloud hosting: With Cove and Catalyst Cloud, Tasman District Council has a resilient hosting option with ongoing maintenance support.
Data sovereignty: With Catalyst Cloud’s infrastructure 100% located and managed in Aotearoa New Zealand, TDC’s data is under NZ laws.
Enhanced security: Upgrading to the latest version of Silverstripe ensured access to the latest security and bug fixes.
Silverstripe 4 EOL is approaching
If you’re on Silverstripe 4 and would like to discuss your options, our team at Catalyst are happy to help. Contact us to talk about your goals.