**Lithium-ion Batteries and Servers Separated by Just 60cm: Data Center Management Laxity Exacerbates Fire**
**The Government’s Inadequate Systems Are to Blame Despite Criticizing Corporations**
A fire occurred at the Daejeon headquarters of the National Computing and Information Resource Service on the 26th, leading to a four-day network outage. On the morning of the 29th, officials from the joint inspection team were examining lithium-ion batteries submerged in water at the fire site in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon. Photo by Lim Se-jun.
On the 26th, a fire in the computer room of the National Computing and Information Resource Service (NCIRS) in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, resulted in the unprecedented shutdown of 647 government systems. While recovery efforts are ongoing, several public services were halted, causing a national crisis.
The government’s inadequate data center management is being criticized for a minor spark leading to a nationwide network disruption. The government, known for its strict disaster management standards for corporations, has been criticized by the industry for its lack of a proper management system for the integrated data centers managing national resources.
**Cloud Disaster Recovery System Delayed by Two Years: Incomplete Redundancy**
According to the ICT industry on the 29th, the fire in the NCIRS’s computer room has exposed various vulnerabilities in the government’s data center management. The fire is suspected to have originated from an explosion of a lithium-ion battery used for the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). It was discovered that the redundancy measures for the cloud environment storing government data were not adequately established. The same management tool redundancy issues seen in the Kakao data center fire three years ago, which caused a KakaoTalk outage, appeared in the government’s data centers.
The Daejeon NCIRS required disaster recovery systems for both servers and the cloud. While the server disaster recovery environment was prepared, the cloud disaster recovery environment was incomplete. The NCIRS initially planned to set up a cloud disaster recovery system in a backup center in Gongju by 2023. However, due to budget issues, the opening was delayed by two years until the latter half of the year. This incomplete disaster recovery system left the government powerless when the system was halted.
The inadequate storage of the highly flammable lithium-ion batteries was also exposed. The batteries were in the same space as the servers with a gap of just 60cm between them.
Given the nature of lithium-ion batteries, it is challenging to extinguish a fire once it ignites, and the fire can reignite even if it seems to have been put out. This caused rapid damage spread and difficulty in controlling the fire. The fire occurred while attempting to relocate the batteries to a different floor to separate them from the servers. Lee Jae-yong, head of NCIRS, explained, “The servers and electrical equipment were on the same floor, and we were in the process of relocating the UPS batteries underground, which had been done twice without issue, but the accident happened.”
**The Government, Despite Criticizing Corporations, Falls Short Compared to Private Sector Disaster Management**
Despite demanding stringent preparedness from corporations, the government finds itself unable to avoid criticism for not implementing similar measures for its systems, exacerbating issues.
When a fire broke out at the Kakao data center three years ago, the government expanded the disaster management obligations to include value-added telecommunications and data center operators under the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Promotion Act, given the significant impact of services like Kakao and Naver on the public. This made mobile operators, as well as corporations like Kakao, Naver, Samsung Electronics, Google, Meta, Coupang, and Netflix, responsible for disaster management obligations.
As the government manages administrative services impacting the entire public life, it has been pointed out that its backward response system lags behind private sectors. Major domestic cloud companies, like Naver and Kakao, already operate AI-driven anomaly detection systems, analyzing temperature and power data in real-time to detect early signs of overheating or power abnormalities and proactively addressing cooling system issues.
Conversely, industry insiders argue that the government’s IT infrastructure remains in a manual management system focused on servers and storage. Despite being a critical national infrastructure, it has not achieved a higher level of safety management than private companies. An industry representative commented, “It’s a serious issue that the government, known for harshly criticizing corporations, managed systems affecting the public so poorly. It’s hard to understand the government citing budget reasons when businesses bear significant burdens to establish their systems.” Reported by Park Se-jung.