Kakao Announces Recurrence Prevention Measures for Outage After 2 Months

On the 7th, 'If Kakao' Reveals Cause Analysis and Recurrence Prevention Measures
Former CEO Namgung Hoon: "Disclosing Embarrassing Parts for Industry's Joint Growth"

[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Choi] Kakao will present measures to prevent recurrence of service outages at its developer conference. This comes about two months after the Kakao outage caused by a fire at SK C&C's Pangyo data center. Attention is focused on this event as it will be the first occasion for Kakao to issue a self-reflection statement after analyzing the cause of the outage.

On the 5th, Kakao announced that it will share the causes of the service disruption and prevention measures at 'IF Kakao Dev 2022' (hereafter IF Kakao), held from the 7th to the 9th. Four keynote speakers will present: Namgoong Hoon, former CEO of Kakao and co-chair of the Emergency Response Committee's Recurrence Prevention Subcommittee; Ko Woo-chan, Chief Cloud Officer (CCO) of Kakao Enterprise and co-chair of the same subcommittee; Lee Hwak-young, CEO of Grep and chair of the Emergency Response Committee's Cause Investigation Subcommittee; and Lee Chae-young, head of Kakao's Technology Division.

Contrary to the usual developer conference format, the keynote content will focus on the causes of the service outage and solutions. Former CEO Namgoong will express his determination to prevent recurrence, and CEO Lee will present the causes of the service disruption. Lee, a former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Kakao who led the development of KakaoTalk and now operates the developer growth platform Grep outside Kakao, will explain the causes of the outage based on his expertise in Kakao services and objectivity as an external figure.

CCO Ko and Technology Division head Lee will share recurrence prevention measures. They will reveal disaster prevention plans for Kakao's own data center, which will be operational from 2024, as well as IT engineering innovation plans for the next five years, technical improvement measures, and future investment plans.

On the 8th, a special session titled '1015 Retrospective' will be held to share data redundancy technologies. It will explain redundancy measures for each system unit, including ▲data centers ▲infrastructure facilities ▲data ▲service platforms ▲applications. In the event of emergencies like the data center fire, the session will cover technologies for rapid service recovery, including data center servers, network infrastructure, service operation management tools, and traffic management technologies.

Kakao's reason for publicly disclosing the causes and prevention measures of the outage through a developer meeting is to prevent similar incidents from recurring in the IT industry. IF Kakao is an annual developer conference held since 2018 to share Kakao's technology and services externally. Although this year’s event will introduce a self-reflection statement instead of showcasing technology, it reflects Kakao management’s intention to provide the industry with a learning opportunity.

Former CEO Namgoong recently posted on his Facebook, "IF Kakao has been a place to proudly showcase technology, but this time, although it is embarrassing, we are proceeding with the hope that it will help the industry and prevent the same unfortunate incident from happening again."

The industry’s attention is also focused on this. As compensation negotiations proceed, a dispute over responsibility with SK C&C is inevitable, and Kakao has taken the initiative to disclose the cause of the problem itself. Kakao and SK C&C have shown subtle differences in their positions regarding the cause of the incident. Additionally, on the 1st, the 'Kakao Outage Prevention Act' passed the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee, drawing attention to the prevention measures as well. If the Kakao Outage Prevention Act is finally passed by the National Assembly, value-added telecommunications service providers like Kakao, not just period telecommunications operators, will be required to implement data center redundancy measures and establish government disaster management basic plans.

Meanwhile, compensation for damages caused by the Kakao outage is expected to take considerable time. The compensation consultative body held its second meeting and shared damage cases by type. Of approximately 105,000 cases, 17.1% involved paid service damages, 15.1% involved free service damages, and the remainder were inquiries, opinions, and complaints unrelated to damages. The consultative body plans to analyze this data and establish specific compensation criteria and principles regarding amounts. However, there are many challenges, such as the lack of compensation regulations and precedents for free services and the need to verify actual damages. A consultative body official said, "Detailed criteria such as the scope and type of damages and supporting evidence need to be established, requiring in-depth discussions. In the case of the KT fire, compensation took nearly a year to complete, but we hope this process will proceed more swiftly."