GyanCentral

Birth of Drupal
Drupal, as an open source project was started in the year 2001. Dries Buytaert was the individual who wrote this open source software. The word Drupal might be somewhat awkward to you. Sol let me tell you that this word was formed from the Dutch word 'druppel' which means drop. The name of this software was originally thought to be kept as 'drop' as the source code of the website drop.org was developed to be the source code of now what we known as Drupal. However, a typing mistake resulted in the name Drupal. As it is an open source, the current development work of Drupal is taken care of by a community. The month of January of the year 2011 saw the release of Drupal 7.0 while Drupal 7.2 and Drupal 6.22 were released in the month of May of the same year. Currently, Drupal 8 is under development and the date of its release is still unknown.

Prime uses of Drupal
The part of Drupal that contains the basic features of content management systems is known as Drupal Core. In fact, Drupal Core is an integral element of Drupal. Drupal Core is known for a hierarchical system which enables an individual to allow content to be divided with the help of keywords. This facility of Drupal Core makes it easier to access.
Drupal Core provides a host of facilities to the web user. Some of the facilities of Drupal Core are URLs (Universal Resource Locator) that are descriptive, advanced search, access of statistics and logging, forums, blogs, polls, support of more than one website, RSS feed and generator, profiles of user, creation and editing of content of multi-user etc...
Drupal Core supports themes which makes the outer appearance of Drupal more attractive and appealing to the user. This module was added to Drupal core 5.0. The administrator enjoys many facilities from Drupal like that of automatic update notification. Through this the administrator gets to know when any new part of Drupal is available. As no expertise is required on the programmer's part to use Drupal, therefore Drupal is used by many.

Importance of Drupal
Drupal is platform independent and is able to run on a platform which has a support for PHP and a database. As lack of programming language does not hinder one's use of Drupal, therefore Drupal is becoming an element of huge importance to web developers. The flexibility of Drupal Core also adds to the importance factor of Drupal. Drupal's security facto is also good which ranks Drupal second after Plone in the security domain. Efficient security of Drupal also makes it an important open source element. Constant development of Drupal by a community is also seen as a positive point in context of its importance. Though termed as 'confusing to understand' and 'difficult to master', Drupal is steadily climbing up the stairs of popularity and usage.

Certifications in Drupal
Drupal being an open source is under constant modification and development. Newer modules are developed at a faster pace. So, grasping of concepts is of utmost importance and there is no better way than undergoing a recognized certified course on Drupal. Gloscon Solutions Private Limited in India provides certifications on Drupal. This company is a developer of Drupal and Ruby on Rails. A large number of students underwent this course last year.
The Drupal Association also offers certifications on Drupal. Acquia an initiative of the Drupal Association currently announced a Drupal certified course named Yellow Jersey; however this course has not been materialized yet. If it does, then it will be hugely beneficial for the students interested in this domain.
Nobleprog an eminent name in UK and also a past member of the Drupal Association offers Nobleprog certification in Drupal. VSkills which has its base in India is also a famous provider of certifications in Drupal. VSkills offers certifications exclusively to professionals and students of technical field who are interested in Web Technology. Working professionals can also take the test of VSkills to sharpen their skills.

Career opportunities in Drupal
As web technology is ever expanding, so is the development related to it. Drupal is vastly used as CMS and also for development of the web, so, professionals of this domain have no need to worry. A freelance website named DrupalJob offers an expert in Drupal with the opportunity of working alongside Drupal professionals.
The need of Drupal developers is on the rise as more and more companies are in the race of using Drupal for web development. As working with Drupal needs the involvement of a database therefore, the knowledge of a database like MySQL acts as an added advantage for a professional on this domain.
Drupal being so immensely popular in recent times attracts an individual to pursue a career in this specific open source domain. The community of Drupal called drupal.org has a huge number of users and developers. This community helps a job seeker in his or her search of the right job in the domain of Drupal.
Professionals in Drupal can also work as a freelance web developer. The need of freelance web developers is also on a rise in recent times because of the rise in usage of Drupal. Summing up, it can be said that the hold of Drupal is bound to get stronger on the domain of CMS and web technology and the day is not far behind when Drupal will be used as primary open source software.