All-Out Effort for Restoration During Extended Holiday... System Restoration Rate Reaches 30.2%

214 National Information Systems Restored After Fire
Daejeon Center Also Utilized to Accelerate Recovery

The government has launched an all-out effort to restore the National Information Resources Service after the fire during the extended holiday period, achieving a restoration rate of over 30% for administrative information systems. To accelerate the process, some systems from the data center where the fire occurred will be restored within the Daejeon Center.

According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on October 10, as of midnight that day, 214 administrative information systems had been restored. The restoration rate increased by about 13 percentage points, from 17% at 6 a.m. on October 2, before the holiday, to 30.2% as of October 10. Among the top-priority systems, 30 out of 40 have been fully restored.

Yonhap News Agency

In particular, the integrated operation management system for national resources, known as nTOPS, was restored during the holiday, increasing the number of systems listed at the Daejeon Center from 647 to 709. The increase in the number of listed systems is due to further categorization by function. Until now, the inability to use nTOPS meant that lists had to be compiled based on remaining documents or staff members’ recollections, but with the restoration of nTOPS, an accurate status report has finally become available.

The government has also detailed its plan to restore the systems in the fifth-floor data center, where the fire broke out. Initially, restoration was to be carried out by migrating systems to the public-private cloud at the Daegu Center. However, it has now been decided that some systems will be restored within the Daejeon Center by sourcing equipment on-site. Kim Minjae, First Deputy Chief of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (and Vice Minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety), stated in a briefing the previous day, “From a technical perspective, it is more efficient to quickly procure and install equipment at the Daejeon Center rather than relocating all fifth-floor systems to the Daegu Center. Once the equipment installation is completed after October 15, the number of restored systems is expected to increase rapidly.”

Accordingly, new equipment will be installed in the fifth and sixth data rooms at the Daejeon Center to restore systems, while systems scheduled to be relocated to the Daegu Center will be moved as soon as discussions with private cloud providers and relevant ministries are concluded. Major systems to be restored within the Daejeon Center include Gukminbiseo, Gukmin Sinmungo, and the eHaneul Burial Information System. Lee Jaeyong, Director of the National Information Resources Service, explained, “While the restoration schedule varies by system, we have determined that restoring these systems within Daejeon will be faster than relocating them to Daegu.”

Additionally, after a government official responsible for the restoration of national resources passed away on October 3, the government assigned professional psychological counselors to be stationed at the Government Complex Sejong and the Daejeon Center medical office. During the holiday, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters reduced the frequency of meetings to improve efficiency, and staff not directly involved in restoration work were allowed to take time off during the holiday by reprioritizing tasks.