Following the success of the Digital Accelerator for Innovation and Research (DAIR) pilot program in 2011-2012, CANARIE has decided to offer up to four cores of their cloud-based computing and storage service free of charge for up to a year to eligible small and medium sized businesses. Additional cores are also offered for $100/year. Comparatively, a similar cloud service from Rackspace or Amazon’s AWS would cost a minimum of $2100 USD.

Given the inherent risk that companies face when transitioning to new technologies, Fundica commends CANARIE for providing an environment in which high-tech entrepreneurs can gain a competitive edge by developing their new products on a highly scalable infrastructure, at a fraction of the cost of doing so using commercial cloud services.

Applicants must be legally recognized Canadian entities with a project that can leverage the scalable nature of cloud infrastructures within the identified time frame. Following completion of the one year project, participants will have to transition to a commercial alternative.