The government set the fee for using public cloud centers 20% lower compared to private centers.
Accordingly, concerns have been raised that some institutions will prefer cheaper public cloud center services over private ones.The Ministry of the Interior and Safety, which is in charge of setting the fee, said that the fee has not been set and plans to recalculate it according to market conditions.
On the 6th, Rep. Young Lee, a member of Public Administration and Security Committee and a Rep. ofPeople PowerParty, analyzed Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s next year budget for and found that the Ministry set the private cloud center usage fee at 10 million KRW per server and the public cloud center usage fee at 8 million KRW.
In July, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced the 'Integrated Administrative and Public Institution Cloud Conversion Promotion Plan' that will convert central administrative agencies, local governments, and public institution systems to 100% cloud by 2025. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to invest a total of about 860 billion KRWby 2025, including support for all cloud conversion costs from next year and support for cloud conversion fees for the first year.
According to the next year’s budget secured by the Office of Rep. Lee, the conversion cost of 113.2 billion KRW and the server usage fee of 126.5 billion KRW were allocated for 2,149 systems, which adds up to a total of 241 billion KRW.
When looking at the server usage fee in detail, there was a difference in usage feeswhere a server of private cloud centers was 10 million KRW and a server of public cloud centers was 8 million KRW.
An industry official said, “The Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s decision does not reflect the characteristics of private cloud centers, which are more cost-effective than public cloud centers. I am concerned that users may be drawn to public cloud centers since it provides the services with lower fees.”
Rep. Lee said, “The government is requesting for cooperation with the private sector on cloud transition policy, but on the other hand, I am concerned that the government is trying to take control over the cloud policy.” He also requested by saying, “The budget for next year's cloud conversion project needs to be comprehensively reviewed to meet the intention.”
An official from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said, “The price list currently set is not confirmed, but only an estimate. From 2023, when the public starts to pay, the price tag will be recalculated to suit the situation. Because the availability of public and private cloud centers has been decided in advance, this cannot be seen as a structure where public and private companies are competing for the price.
By Staff Reporter Ji-sun Kim (river@etnews.com)