The Digital Research Alliance of Canada (the Alliance) has launched a call for participation for researchers to test the Alliance Cloud Connect Pilot (ACCP). This initiative forms part of the Alliance’s 2023-25 digital research infrastructure (DRI) investments. Participants from diverse sectors will be invited to test the ACCP, a new portal providing seamless access to commercial and community cloud.
This project has the potential to dramatically increase the productivity of DRI in Canada. At the same time, the ecosystem is complex, and researcher feedback is essential to the pilot project’s success.
The researcher call for participation will include three researcher cohorts from July to October 2024:
- Cohort #1 includes submissions received by July 3
- Cohort #2 includes submissions received between July 3 and September 1
- Cohort #3 includes submissions received between September 1 and October 15
October 15, 2024 is the final deadline for all submissions.
The goal of this call is to engage the Canadian research community in the testing and refinement of the services and capabilities developed through the ACCP. This is an opportunity for the research community to be part of a cutting-edge initiative that will transform the long-term strategy for cloud computing in Canadian research. Participants will get early access to the ACCP platform services and provide feedback on the services at a critical time in their development.
This call is open to all Canadian researchers who currently use or have a need for DRI services (either community cloud or advanced research computing services) and who are interested in participating in the development, testing and assessment of the ACCP platform. A range of researchers are welcome, including those who:
- Have a range of experience using the cloud, including general users and more advanced users;
- Require a range of computational resources for their research; and
- Want to be involved in the pilot as either early adoption users of the ACCP services or as test users of full-featured, beta services offered by the ACCP platform.
There will be a number of benefits to researchers who choose to participate in this call, including early access to ACCP services and capabilities; the ability to influence the direction of the project; interaction with industry experts; access to compute cycles and storage; and potential access to specialized resources and services.
For more information, including project overview, eligibility, submission guidelines, criteria for acceptance and more, visit www.alliancecan.ca/ACCP or email ACCP@alliancecan.ca.