The Townsend Report

Today Onvia, a leading provider of U.S. government contracting data, announced integration of its leading database on state and local contracting opportunities with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This means that Onvia subscribers can search for business opportunities and add them to Dynamics CRM without rekeying information on the government agency or the opportunity. Dynamics CRM is increasingly popular for government contractors, and Onvia is the first of the major data subscription services to provide this integration.   Watch this video to see the integration in action:  https://onvia.wistia.com/medias/y2ouf6638e   Onvia adds Dynamics CRM integration to their Salesforce integration capabilities. For more details, see the press release: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/onvia-reveals-new-integration-with-microsoft-dynamics-crm-300312209.html 

Hurricane Arthur from NOAA.gov Natural disasters create opportunities for heroic rescues, and this is true for cloud computing as well. My company serves many government agencies across the country, and over the years several have experienced flooding and prolonged power interruptions at their data centers. One of the strongest business cases for cloud computing is to ensure continuity of operations, and natural disasters put this strategy to the test. I have had clients lose use of  their on premises computing facilities due to flooding and hurricanes, as well as being unable to reach their offices in blizzard conditions. Hurricane Sandy in 2012 may have triggered the greatest level of a cloud computing response by flooding sections of New York City.  Administrators who were prepared with cloud resources moved their computing from Manhattan to Northern Virginia or even across the country to Oregon. Services such as ylastic automate the process of moving cloud services f