Last night marked the start of the college basketball season here in Lawrence, and I attended the exhibition game for our Jayhawks in historic Allen Fieldhouse. For you college basketball fans, the road to March Madness begins now.

For you government contracting fans, there’s also news in that world. This week, we bring you updates about security guidance for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud, a reminder about FedBizOpps going away, and a House of Representatives panel looking into Native 8(a) contracting issues.

The end of the government’s fiscal year always brings a rash of government purchasing. We hope the government’s purchasing push has been good for all of our readers. As you recover from the busy last couple of weeks, enjoy this week’s updates in government contracting, which may help put some perspective on what just happened at the end of the last fiscal year and identify future trends for government acquisitions.

This week’s updates include a recap of large defense deals, the future of the Federal Data Strategy, and a State Department contracting officer convicted of bribery.

It’s Friday, and that means its time for another round of SmallGovCon updates as you ease on into your weekend. Hope everyone has a great one and enjoys these last few weekends of summer!

Read on for some important updates from the government contracting world, including an amended solicitation for the Alliant 2 Small Business IT contract, discussions about how best to put data in the cloud, and satisfactory CPARS ratings.