What is Web Hosting?
Web hosting is a service that provides space to house, publish, and maintain your website. We are transitioning from Pantheon to Acquia as our enterprise-supported vendor.
Changing to a new web hosting provider: Acquia
Arizona State University (ASU) has chosen the Acquia Cloud Platform as a service provider to deliver its next generation of Drupal website and application hosting.
Why this matters
Previously, each ASU website was hosted separately, requiring site owners to manage technical updates and security. With Acquia Site Factory, ASU now offers a centralized hosting solution that:
- Reduces the technical burdens on-site owners
- Ensures better security, accessibility, brand compliance and performance
- Allows site owners to focus not on technical maintenance but on building the web experiences that drive student and faculty success at ASU
Websites hosted on Acquia are grouped into “stacks,” which are multiple sites sharing the same foundational code. This ensures consistency, simplifies updates and improves efficiency.
Alternately, ASU Enterprise sites employ the Acquia Cloud Next product to manage standalone Drupal hosting for sites with unique requirements or high traffic, such as ASU’s main webpage (www.asu.edu).
Key features of the ASU Drupal platform
ASU’s Drupal hosting offers a variety of services to make website management more straightforward, including:
Website hosting and maintenance
- Secure and reliable hosting on Acquia Cloud
- Webspark and The College's ASU web standards-compliant content management systems based on Drupal
- Automatic updates and security patches
User access and security
- User provisioning – Granting appropriate access to users
- Single Sign-On (SSO) – Log in using ASU credentials
- Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) – Encrypting site traffic for security
Website management and deployment
- Site creation & launch – New websites can be set up easily
- Content switching – Managing traffic between different sites
- Platform development & maintenance – Continuous security and performance improvements
Redirects and domain management
- URL redirects – Managed through Jira or ServiceNow tickets
- DNS & SSL certificates – Secured via Infoblox and automated validation