A Government Data Center

The author recalls using unreliable floppy disks in college and the IT department's solution: a backed-up network share. This highlights the need for organizations, especially governments, to centrally store and manage documents. South Korea's attempt, the G-Drive system, failed when a datacenter fire destroyed 858TB of data and knocked out 647 government services. The critical flaw was the G-Drive's inability to perform external backups, leaving it vulnerable, and lack of failover sites. While a police investigation focuses on illegal subcontracting potentially causing the fire, the author argues the fundamental issue was poor system design. The lack of data replication and failover capabilities meant the entire system was a single point of failure. Building resilient infrastructure is challenging but essential, and established best practices were evidently ignored. The author uses the analogy of an "expensive floppy disk" to illustrate the lack of redundancy. Ultimately, the disaster underscores the importance of robust backup and disaster recovery strategies.