1. How does NIRS close deals over information resource operation & management projects?

Information resource operation & management projects of NIRS are entrusted to those companies who participated in and won at the open bid competition conducted through the national e-procurement system, KONEPS run by Public Procurement Service (PPS). Mostly, the contracts are valid through 1 to 3 years. NIRS has found the fittest and they take charge over assigned projects.


2. Does NIRS charge client institutes for its services?

No, NIRS does not charge the customer agencies per its services. NIRS is a service providing government institution which is a non pro-profit one. However, NIRS has measured cloud resource usage rate per institution which might be used as a reference when NIRS decides to run a fare imposing system over clients in the future.


3. How does NIRS communicate with the clients over information resource management?

There is a portal for internal use to manage integrated resource operation in NIRS called nTOPS (national Total Operation Platform System). Most of essential information such as system operation status, things to notice, knowledge management, and more are shared with client agencies in real time through the system. There are staff in charge assigned per each institution to communicate with as well. Semi-annual or quarter based congregations exclusively for clients have been arranged so that recent trends or changes in major policies could be shared in more intimate way.


4. Does NIRS comply with international standards as well?

NIRS has proved its professional and universal capability to operate a data center by acquiring a number of international standard certifications from the early stages. NIRS are certified by ISO 9001 in infrastructure operation, ISO20000 in IT service management, ISO 22301 in business continuity and ISO 27001 in cyber security management fields. NIRS does not hold the authentications any more though as it decided to discontinue renewing them couple of years ago due to internal security issues.


5. Tell us about operating systems of the NIRS’ information resources.

NIRS takes care of almost one of every brands of information assets therefore, it is so called as ‘a department store’ of them. There are many heterogeneous types of operating systems supporting them accordingly. NIRS has contracted with all vendors when required to get professional technical supports. As NIRS is a government agency, it can’t favor a specific brand.


6. Can foreigners work at NIRS?

As most tasks of NIRS require professional knowledge and smooth communications based on fluent Korean language and they are important government duties, normally most associates working in NIRS are Korean nationals. There are no regulations discriminating nationalities, however, it haven’t been many foreigners working for NIRS.


7. Does NIRS have any standardized operating platform or system?

It was unavoidable to be able to arrange a smart set of standardized platform or framework for NIRS who were required to comprehensively operate heterogeneous types of device and solutions to efficiently manage the data center. e-Government standard framework, which was tried to be implemented from the early stage of NIRS, was designed based on IT Service Management (ITSM) principles, however, it was challenging indeed to put every aspect of operation into a new standardized arrangement. NIRS applied essential procedures for sure with necessary modifications.


8. Are all gears or solutions of NIRS house-made?

NIRS has found it quite demanding for a specific solution or device to fully be able to incorporate the distinctive environment of itself. In many cases, NIRS needed to house-design and develop required solutions, systems, or platforms for its own. However, security related gears for major government institutions including NIRS should be complied with regulations of National Intelligent Service (NIS) as a matter of duty. At the same time, delivered goods from the public procurement via open bidding should be accommodating specification that NIRS present.


9. Let us know about the professional training system of NIRS for the staff.

For the public officers, there are training systems divided into 9 groups per characteristics of tasks based on NIRS HR Training Program. Various courses are being provided per group. The courses can be classified as for professional capability and common one based on nature of contents. For the private partners, seminars or workshops dealing with new technologies and trends are constantly presented all year around.


10. Does NIRS have a plan to manage private data as well in the future?

No. The primary objective of establishing NIRS was to exclusively serve the government agencies as clients. NIRS does not plan to even accommodate private data yet. Those of private sector such as banks or hospitals are independently managed by their own they are required to comply with critical government provisions though.


11. Can client agencies choose whether to entrust their resources to NIRS or not? Is it optional or compulsory?

It is a 'must' thing to follow, not an option for the clients can choose from. Before NIRS was established, the resources were individually managed by clients respectively. However, operation and management of the 45 client agencies' information resources have been one of the sole responsibilities of NIRS since 2005.


12. How are resources of local governments being managed?

Cities or provinces with scales such as Seoul, Busan, or Kyounggido are operating their own data centers independently. Whereas the resources of small and medium scaled cities of local governments are comprehensively managed by Korea Local Information Research & Development Institute (KLID), which plays a similar role as NIRS. Both NIRS and KLID are under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.


13. Are projects of NIRS only being ordered to big players, I mean to large enterprises like Samsung or LG?

At early stage of operating NIRS, most of private partners were from big enterprises as they had a number of reliable experiences dealing with System Integration (SI). As time goes by, government had tried out new policies encouraging more of SMEs to participate in NIRS projects to develop the industry in general, boost up related local economy and invite SMEs to be competitive by set limits over huge groups. Currently, 100% of NIRS' private partners are local SMEs.


14. How about new service development? Who is in charge?

Services and applications are directly developed by the clients. They are the one who know and understand best about the contents they are dealing with better than NIRS does. All information resources related matter required for creating new contents are closely discussed with NIRS from the beginning stages of development till distribution.


15. Who is responsible for taking care of incidents happening over NIRS managing data?

It depends on the scope of responsibility either of NIRS or clients based on the nature of data. NIRS takes care of DB security, DB system engine operation and DB volume management. On the other hand, client agencies deal with DB data security, private information security, DB access control and more.