The Federal Government’s First Foray into Cloud Computing, Circa 1965

There’s really nothing new about federal cloud computing — other than a few zeros added to the costs.

Some 47 years ago, the US federal government was considering a secretive plan to consolidate its data centers into a single mega-center, thereby eliminating all the agency silos that were springing up.

The price tag for the new center would have been $2 million a year to start — a real bargain compared to today’s $80 billion-a-year IT budget. Details of the plan, first formulated in 1965, are offered in a paper recently presented by Rebecca S. Kraus, Ph.D. of the US Census Bureau.

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