Central Disaster Headquarters Briefing on National Information Resources Fire
Accelerating Recovery with Additional Personnel and Budget
Online Civil Consultation Services to Resume Tomorrow
The government is launching an all-out effort to shorten the restoration time at the National Information Resources Service fire site by deploying additional personnel, including private sector experts. The costs required for manpower and new equipment will be covered under a "spend first, pay later" policy. The goal is to have the systems being restored at the Daegu Center's public-private partnership cloud up and running by the 28th.
Kim Minjae, First Deputy Chief of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (Vice Minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety), held a briefing on October 2 and explained, "One of the main reasons for the overall slow recovery is that even the systems in Data Centers 1 to 6, which were less affected by the fire, were often linked to the systems in Data Centers 7 and 8 on the fifth floor, where the fire occurred." He added, "To expedite the restoration of all systems, we are accelerating the recovery of the fifth-floor data centers."
As of 12:00 p.m. on October 2, 112 out of 647 systems that experienced failures have been restored, resulting in a recovery rate of 17.3%.
First, the repair period for the power supply units in Data Centers 7 and 8 on the fifth floor, which suffered fire damage, will be shortened. Normally, this process takes one month, but it is now scheduled to be completed within ten days. In addition, the core infrastructure such as UPS and batteries at the main Daejeon facility of the National Information Resources Service is being replaced, and lost equipment such as servers and network devices in Data Centers 7 and 8 is being purchased and redeployed.
On-site and advisory personnel have also been reinforced. Kim stated, "Yesterday afternoon, we held an expert advisory meeting on the relocation plan for the Daegu Center with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information, and today we plan to hold another with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute. We have also requested support from private sector experts such as Samsung SDS and LG CNS, and cooperation is underway." In addition, about 20 outstanding personnel from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety headquarters, as well as trainees for promotion to grade 5, have been dispatched to the Daejeon site.
The systems being restored through the Daegu public-private partnership cloud are targeted to be operational by the 28th. Kim stated, "The contract for leasing space at the Daegu Center was completed on September 30, and we are allocating two weeks to prepare the equipment and another two weeks for trial operation, safety verification, and system launch. Currently, our goal is to have the systems running by the 28th."
Kim further stated, "We have initiated procedures to utilize emergency funds for rapid recovery and, above all, have taken measures to ensure immediate execution of personnel deployment and budget spending. At the site, costs related to the deployment of additional recovery personnel and the purchase of new equipment will be covered under the 'spend first, pay later' approach."
The government will first resume online civil consultation services for local governments, which had been suspended due to the shutdown of the e-People portal, starting tomorrow (October 3). The e-People system was located in Data Center 7-1, which was directly affected by the fire and has not yet been restored. Kim explained, "We are improving local administration system functions so that citizens can receive necessary civil consultations, such as inquiries about the second round of consumption coupons, and online civil consultation services will resume from tomorrow."
For the 'G-Drive' internal cloud storage data lost due to lack of backup, the plan is to recover data using cached files from individual PCs. Lee Jaeyong, Director of the National Information Resources Service, stated, "Even when using G-Drive, temporary files and caches remain on individual PCs. By utilizing these cache files, we are working to recover up to one month's worth of data." In addition, data stored in the internal work network for public officials, the 'Onnara System,' is scheduled for emergency recovery by October 6.
Regarding the failure to establish a G-Drive backup system prior to this incident, Director Lee stated, "We recognize this as a serious oversight on our part. Given the large capacity and technical limitations of G-Drive, it was realistically difficult to back up the system. When we rebuild it, we plan to implement a method that avoids such difficulties from the storage stage."
During the Chuseok holiday period, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters will maintain a 24-hour emergency work system. Headquarters meetings will be held every other day starting October 3, and during the holiday, the head of the headquarters (Minister of the Interior and Safety) will visit the site to encourage those involved and promote recovery efforts.
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