Blog
New board members will strengthen Cybera’s education, non-profit focus
Cybera is pleased to welcome three new members to our Board of Directors. Roy Daykin, John Schutte, and Helen Wetherly Knight will bring impressive experience and knowledge of the education and not-for-profit sectors to Cybera’s board. Roy DaykinChief Financial Officer and Vice President, Corporate Services, SAIT With more than 30 years in the education system, Roy […]
Canada’s Throne Speech made big internet promises. Now for the delivery.
Last week’s Speech from the Throne included many ambitious promises for supporting Canadians as they transition through COVID-19 and adapt to the needs of a 21st Century digital economy. From Cybera’s perspective, one of the more interesting goals mentioned in the speech related to improving connectivity in the country: “The Government will accelerate the connectivity timelines and […]
Piloting a Canadian route to Microsoft Azure: lessons learned
Public clouds, such as Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure, are increasingly becoming a popular choice for hosting an organization’s IT infrastructure and services. They can often provide managed and semi-managed services more efficiently than an average in-house IT department. With more Cybera members leveraging public cloud services such as these, we are looking at ways […]
How federal decisions on wholesale rates impacts internet prices for all Canadians
On August 15, 2020, the federal government issued a controversial statement regarding an ongoing disagreement between incumbent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and wholesale internet providers over the wholesale rates set by the CRTC. In its statement, the government seemingly supported an argument advanced by Canada’s big three telecoms providers. They claimed that current regulations requiring […]
University of Alberta sees many upsides after switching to IPv6
In 2018, the University of Alberta switched its wifi to IPv6 (internet protocol version 6). Raymond Richmond, Team Lead for IST at the University, talks about his experience with becoming IPv6-enabled, and the benefits that have come with making the change. (One of the biggest benefits right now is being able to offer a more […]
Edmonton Public Library becomes first public institution in Alberta to offer eduroam
This summer, the Edmonton Public Library (EPL) became the first non-post-secondary education institution in Alberta to offer eduroam, a world-wide roaming internet access service. This means any staff or students from an eduroam-connected institution — such as NAIT, the University of Alberta, MacEwan University, and Concordia University of Edmonton — who have eduroam set up […]
Federal Government’s hesitation to support fair wholesale rates could make internet less affordable for Canadians
This past Saturday, August 15, federal minister Navdeep Bains issued a statement expressing concern about the CRTC’s August 2019 decision to cut wholesale internet rates. He stated that “these [reduced] rates may undermine investment in high-quality networks, particularly in rural and remote areas.“ The CRTC is responsible for setting the rates that incumbent network operators […]
Cost savings and new training initiatives: the latest from ShareIT
Alberta’s ShareIT public procurement program has reported its most productive quarter ever in terms of creating cost savings. Between April 1 and June 30, 2020, the program facilitated $4.26 million in savings for its participating institutions. This number was calculated by comparing the actual spend on IT tools, licensing, and services to what organizations would have […]
“Rage Against the Machine [Learning]” Hockey vs. Data Science
A strong understanding of math is one skill commonly needed to be a successful data scientist. Some of the most successful data scientists have a vast array of mathematical skills they can use — along with programming expertise — to run a data science project. Often when Cyberans discuss machine learning and data science with […]
Data science industry fellowship helps Albertans gain real-world experience
Cybera, in partnership with Alberta Innovates, has resumed its Data Science Industry Fellowships that was successfully piloted in 2019. The program, which commenced today, helps emerging data scientists (fellows) gain employment opportunities by providing them with real-world data science experience. In parallel, the fellowships support Alberta-based organizations in adopting data science projects that will help […]
The ties that bind Alberta’s tech administrators
Between May 2019 and February 2020, Cybera held a series of half-day round table sessions in Red Deer, Lethbridge, Grande Prairie, Edmonton and Calgary. Our goal was to review the digital resources currently being used by Alberta’s public and education sectors to create efficiencies and improve computational literacy. We also wanted to identify existing gaps. […]
Cybera continues to drive cost-savings for Alberta’s education sector
Cybera has once again dropped the set rate for bandwidth in its Internet Buying Group, reducing the price from $1.35 to $1.30 per Mbps. This is the 14th price drop for the bulk buying service since its launch in 2012. Coupled with Cybera’s Peering service, the Internet Buying Group has so far saved members organizations (including post-secondary […]
Cybera’s shared procurement service adds audiovisual / Adobe licensing services
The Cybera-operated Alberta ShareIT Program provides cybersecurity and training services to Alberta’s education sector, as well as a highly valued cost-saving procurement service. This procurement service has now expanded its catalogue of offerings. With schools and post-secondary institutions adapting to the restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for affordable and accessible online tools […]
Alberta Innovates and Cybera team up to offer a Data Science Fellowship program
This summer, Alberta Innovates and Cybera will be offering a Data Science Fellowship program to interested Albertans. This is an opportunity for budding data scientists to gain real-world experience with local companies. The program will run in stages throughout 2020, with the first intake group starting in August 2020. How will it work? A team of […]
Creating a federation of global computers for science and research
Cybera’s Rapid Access Cloud is a small contributor to a global chain of compute nodes, brought together by the Open Science Grid to support science projects. A computer cluster is when several “tightly connected” computers are made to work on a project together, essentially creating a single system. These clusters are a great means of […]