Two years after the fire eating power outages, “double redundancy in all systems” … visited Kakao’s own data center [Report]

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경기도 안산시 상록구 카카오 데이터센터 안산. [이가람 기자]

“카카오에게는 잊을 수 없는 날이 있다. 화재 발생으로 카카오의 모든 서비스가 긴 시간 멈췄던 사건은 카카오에게 트라우마로 남은 뼈아픈 경험이었다. 이런 장애가 반복되지 않도록 데이터 안정성을 최고 수준으로 끌어올려야 한다는 책임감에 완공하는 날까지 끊임없이 보완하고 고민한 결과가 바로 이곳이다.” (정신아 카카오 대표이사)

On the 11th, Kakao unveiled the Kakao Data Center (IDC) Ansan located in Hanyang University Erica Campus in Gyeonggi-do, Ansan. Kakao Data Center Ansan is Kakao’s first self-owned data center. Completed in September last year, it started operation in January this year. Covering a floor area of 47,378 square meters, the two buildings consist of basement 1st floor to 6th floor above ground, boasting hyper-scale capable of storing 120,000 servers and 6 exabytes (EB) of data.

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카카오 데이터센터 안산 옥상. [사진 = 카카오]

Community communication and cooperation programs are also in operation. Typically, data centers are located in remote areas to maintain security. However, Kakao Data Center Ansan is located on a campus with good accessibility. Kakao opened part of the operating building to residents and students. I remembered the sight of Kakao character Ryan and Hanyang University character Haniang welcoming visitors at the entrance of the data center.

Goo U-chan, leader of Kakao Infra Technology Achievement, said, “A data center that does not miss the value of stability while considering environmental friendliness and symbiosis with the local community” and emphasized, “Starting from next week at the latest, various services centered on KakaoTalk will be operated at the Kakao Data Center Ansan, and we will make every effort to keep users’ daily lives safe and convenient.”

Meanwhile, Kakao is planning to build a new data center following the one in Ansan. It is currently in the process of selecting a site. It plans to design a high-performance computing (HPC) data center specialized for AI-based service operation to effectively respond to future technology environments.

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