Data center failure, public service disruption: How did Korea handle it?

(Chinhphu.vn) - How did the Korean government handle the situation when 96 storage systems were destroyed in a fire on September 26 at the National Information Resources Agency (NIRS) in Daejeon, about 140 km south of Seoul?

South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min Seok (center) inspects the scene of the fire at NIRS on September 27 - Photo: Yonhap

Lost all working documents of 750,000 civil servants

On October 1, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety of South Korea (MOIS) said that the government's official document storage system was destroyed in a fire at NIRS, causing the loss of all working documents of 750,000 civil servants nationwide.

According to MOIS, the G Drive cloud storage, which has been recommended since 2018 as an alternative to personal computer storage, was among the 96 storage systems that burned down. Because the systems were not backed up off-site, all archived documents were lost.

Agencies that use this system solely for storing work documents will experience significant disruptions in operations.

Set up an emergency response room headed by the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs

To date, 101 of the 647 services affected by the fire at NIRS have been restored, bringing the recovery rate to 15.6%.

Of these, 21/36 level 1 services - essential services with a large number of users - have resumed operations.

NIRS has set up an emergency response room headed by Vice Minister of the Interior Kim Min Jae to monitor the progress of service restoration.

A cloud computing company has been chosen to relocate 96 burned-out systems to a data center in the southeastern city of Daegu, Mr. Kim said.

For the 546 systems that have not been restored, the Korean Government has set up alternative services for 267 systems to minimize disruptions.

The fire is estimated to have caused about 12.6 billion won ($8.9 million) in damage to sellers on the Korea Post's online shopping mall.

Earlier in the day, police arrested four people on suspicion of negligence in moving lithium-ion batteries from a fifth-floor server room, which led to a serious fire.

South Korean President Calls for Strengthening System Security

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung apologized to the nation for the incident and asked the government to urgently restore services before the Chuseok (Mid-Autumn Festival) holiday - an important holiday in South Korea when demand for postal, delivery and financial services increases.

He ordered a "significant increase" in the security of government systems and asked ministers to propose emergency funding to prevent similar situations.

According to Reuters, South Korea has one of the highest levels of internet connectivity in the world, with many public services, from identification to press conferences, being conducted online. However, experts say the new incident shows that the government lacks a proper system to immediately restore essential services.

Meanwhile, Korea Times quoted industry sources as saying that the possibility of data loss due to fire is very low because the national data center has a four-stage backup system and a disaster recovery system that is also in operation, ensuring regular data backup.

Source: https://baochinhphu.vn/su-co-trung-tam-du-lieu-gian-doan-dich-vu-cong-han-quoc-da-xu-ly-the-nao-102251002110854872.htm