Gov't targets one-hour recovery for key information systems

One year after a devastating fire at a key state data center, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced measures Friday to enhance the stability of government information systems.

The fire at the National Information Resources Service's (NIRS) data center in the central city of Daejeon broke out on Sept. 26 last year, damaging servers and crippling key online administrative systems, such as government websites and local community center systems, across the country. Services took 95 days to fully recover.

The government will strengthen its disaster recovery system to ensure that core administrative information systems directly linked to people's daily lives can be restored within one hour in the event of a disaster, the Interior Ministry said.

The government plans to reclassify its approximately 15,000 public information systems according to their importance and give priority to establishing disaster recovery systems for 13 core systems, including the disaster-safety information service and resident registration system, by the first half of next year, the ministry said.

The 76 systems classified at the highest level, A1, will adopt a dual-operation system, with backup systems maintained at separate data centers to ensure service restoration within one hour in the event of a disaster.

The government will establish a system for the NIRS's Gongju Center to replicate 121 systems at the Daejeon Center in real time by the first half of next year, while the agency's Gwangju and Daegu centers will also have data replication systems in place by 2027.

“First of all, disaster recovery systems for [data] storage will be established for all systems in [NIRS'] Daejeon, Daegu and Gwangju centers by next year,” Hwang Gyu-cheol, head of the ministry's AI Government Bureau, said at a media briefing.

“The foundation for recovery in the event of a large-scale failure will be in place by the end of next year.”

Yonhap