Kakao has Restored 40% of Its Service in Aftermath of Fire

You would think major companies like Kakao and Naver would have a more robust back up server capabilities to have resiliency against unexpected incidents like this:

KaKao, the operator of Korea’s dominant messaging app Kakao Talk, has restored 40 percent of its data center’s servers, an executive said Sunday, as it is working to fully repair its services disrupted by a fire.

The tech giant has restored 12,000 servers out of 32,000 at its data center in the SK CC building located in Pangyo, just south of Seoul, said Yang Hyun-seo, Kakao’s vice president handling the company’s relationship with the government.

“It is hard to tell exactly how long it will take before Kakao Talk and other services can be fully restored,” she said at the site, citing a massive server loss.

Kakao has servers in Pangyo and Anyang, both in Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul, as part of its risk management policy, but the fire, which has been extinguished, was unexpected, according to Kakao.

The fire broke out Saturday in the SK CC building, which houses the data centers of Kakao and the country’s leading search engine Naver, a rare accident that disrupted both tech giants’ services.

President Yoon Suk-yeol instructed officials to make efforts to ensure Kakao can quickly resume its services as he called on the company to find out the exact cause of the fire and come up with measures to avoid future disruptions of services.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Yoon administration jumping into this makes it seem like it is a national emergency. I think people can survive a day or two without a social media site and search engine service.