Ministry of Interior and Safety unveils AI government infrastructure governance plan

Battery safety standards significantly tightened, including compliance with service-life limits

Private cloud migration to expand as part of system relocation effort

Minister of Interior and Safety Yun Ho-jung (far right) visits the National Information Resources Service's Daejeon headquarters on Thursday to inspect the recovery of server facilities and review digital safety management systems, one year after a battery fire broke out at the site in September last year. [Ministry of Interior and Safety]
Minister of Interior and Safety Yun Ho-jung (far right) visits the National Information Resources Service's Daejeon headquarters on Thursday to inspect the recovery of server facilities and review digital safety management systems, one year after a battery fire broke out at the site in September last year. [Ministry of Interior and Safety]

The government plans to strengthen its disaster recovery framework so that core administrative information systems critical to daily public life can be restored within one hour of a disaster, following last year's fire at the National Information Resources Service's Daejeon center.

The Ministry of Interior and Safety said Friday that Minister Yun Ho-jung visited the NIRS Daejeon center on Wednesday, and on Thursday reviewed the status of major pan-government tasks — including efforts to bolster the stability of information systems and operating facilities and to build out disaster recovery systems.

As a first step, the ministry issued a related directive in April to establish management standards ensuring stable operation of information systems housed at government facilities. It also overhauled the information system rating regime to reflect the degree of impact on the public, reclassifying all roughly 15,000 national information systems under a new four-tier scale of A1 through A4.

Recovery time targets by rating are: within one hour for A1, three to 12 hours for A2, one to five days for A3, and within three weeks for A4.

For the top-tier A1 rating in particular, a dual-operation model will be applied — placing a backup system that performs the same functions as the primary system at a separate data center — so that services can be restored within one hour in the event of a disaster.

Depending on the rating, the construction of disaster recovery systems, recovery drills, and data backup and off-site storage will all be made mandatory.

Battery safety and the overall stability of information system operating facilities have also been reinforced. New standards tighten requirements for lithium battery rooms, including clearer rules on separating server equipment and uninterruptible power supply units, a ban on laying power lines unrelated to battery room operations, real-time battery condition monitoring, and mandatory compliance with battery service-life limits.

For the disaster recovery system, the government will first draw up an information strategy plan covering 97 A1- and A2-rated systems operating at the NIRS Daejeon center. Of those, 13 high-priority systems — including the Safety Didimstone emergency alert platform and the DBrain administrative system — will begin construction this month, with completion targeted by the first half of next year.

The government will also develop alternatives to the NIRS Daejeon center and expand migration to private cloud services.

Because fire damage and aging infrastructure have made it difficult to guarantee the center's stability, the government plans to shut it down by 2030. Since July, it has been in discussions with KT Corp, Naver and NHN Cloud on options for a replacement center and the redeployment of systems currently in operation, with a plan to be finalized by the first quarter of next year. This year, 50 systems will be migrated to private cloud platforms as a priority, with the pace of migration set to accelerate from next year onward.

"Successfully realizing the AI democratic government we recently announced must be premised, above all else, on the uninterrupted and stable delivery of public services," Yun said. "Building on the follow-up measures taken over the past year, we will prepare thoroughly — on both the systems and policy fronts — to ensure that a national disaster like the NIRS fire never happens again."


thlee@heraldcorp.com