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Central Government, Government Security, Policy

New Korean IT Agency President reveals priorities

By Kelly Ng | 21 February 2010

Korea’s National Computing and Information Agency (NCIA) has placed cloud computing technologies, green IT and information security as top three priorities for 2010. Newly appointed President Chang Kwang-soo revealed to FutureGov his five-pronged strategy for the challenges ahead.

Less than four months into his new role, Chang is already faced with much pressure to find new ways of reducing cost. “Last year, the Smart Green NCIA project achieved approximately 10 per cent energy reduction compared to 2008, which translated to savings of over 1 billion Korean won (US$900,000) on the electricity bill,” said Chang.

“NCIA has also cut 30 per cent of IT spending – 18.4 billion Korean won (US$16 million) – by consolidating 79 business systems of 35 government ministries. Taking into account the energy savings, total savings could amount to 43.3 billion Korean won (US$37.7 million),” he added.

The burden is on Chang to deliver the same level of success this year. On top of that, NCIA is facing increasing information security threats. “There has been a rise in the number of cyber attacks on main web sites. New attack techniques have also emerged, such as altering application programme to steal information, altering content on web site, and so on. There is an urgent need to strengthen our infrastructure to protect national information resources,” Chang noted.

To deal with these challenges, Chang elaborated on three of five strategies for this year.

‘Smart NCIA’ aims to make its government data centre intelligent and green. It involves a full scale introduction of cloud computing, the deployment of green technology and management of the centre by international standards. Ecological measures include optimising server storage space and arrangement of hot and cold aisle within the data centre. If carried out smoothly, NCIA will reduce 38,923 kilowatt hour of electricity every year which is an 18 per cent decrease in carbon emissions.

For the past four years, NCIA has successfully integrated computing resources of over 40 ministries of the central government into two national data centres located in Daejeon and Gwangju. In December 2009, resources have been reduced to the level of 1/33. This year, Chang plans to further integrate all government computing equipment by consolidating small scale devices into more efficient large scale computing systems. This is part of the ‘Saving NCIA’ strategy.

‘Secure NCIA’ is another strategy NCIA is focusing on in 2010. Chang plans to establish a global information cooperation system, a dedicated centre for back up, and expand its IT security infrastructure. “We believe it is important to nurture professionals who are trained in counteracting cyber attacks,” he said.

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