Living Lakes Canada's Columbia Basin Water Hub, a CKAN portal launched in 2021, was hosted on a partner's server and maintained by a team with limited IT capacity. When a surge of automated bot traffic slowed the portal until it stopped working, the team moved to managed hosting with Link Digital. Link's Canadian subsidiary, Datashades Ltd, added extra security that stopped the bot problem. The Hub's manager reports that the transition needed little work on their side, storage is no longer a constraint, performance has improved, and internal time spent on hosting has already fallen.
Watch the interview with Maggie Finkle-Aucoin (GIS and Database Manager, Living Lakes Canada) or talk to us about managed CKAN hosting.
Source post: Making the move to managed CKAN hosting: How it worked for the Columbia Basin Water Hub (Andrew Nette, 22 July 2026)
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About our partner
Link Digital
System architects of data and knowledge infrastructureFor 25 years, Link Digital has designed and run the information systems that governments, research institutions and international organisations depend on. We build open data portals and internal data hubs, host and support them, and now make them ready for people and AI to ask questions of. Founded in Australia in 2001, we work with clients worldwide, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Pacific, and Latin America.Official CKAN co-stewardCKAN is a leading open source data portal platform, and Link Digital has been part of its community since 2012. Our Executive Director, Steven De Costa, and our engineers are involved across CKAN's governance, community and technical work, and our team includes the project's Core Tech Lead. We help shape the 2.12 and 3.0 roadmaps. For public sector buyers, that means open source with no vendor lock-in, and a partner with a say in the releases and long-term sustainability you will rely on.What we doAsk AI for CKAN. Ask questions in plain language and get verified answers drawn from your own data. It runs in your secure environment, never trains public models, and you control who can query which datasets. We start with an AI-readiness audit.End-to-end CKAN services. Consultancy, migration from legacy systems, hosting, support, extensions and theming, with DCAT and FAIR-aligned metadata.Managed hosting, support and maintenance. CKAN and Drupal on AWS infrastructure we architect and monitor, with security patch assessment, restore-verified backups and version currency. One team, one agreement, one invoice. We can take over portals built by others.Internal data hubs and Secure Data Exchange. Governed sharing across departments, with approval workflows, revocable data sharing agreements and a dashboard showing who is using your data.Custom CKAN and Drupal buildsStart a conversation with Link Digital: Book a consultation or request an AI-readiness audit.
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