The government of South Korea has announced that it will replace all the computer systems used in its central governments, local governments, and public institutions to Linux-based operating systems starting from the end of 2020. The government has planned to use only Cloud OS, Harmonica OS, and TMAX OS Linux-based operating systems.
In April last year, the South Korean Ministry of Public Administration and Security started a pilot test on Linux-based operating systems for public institutions. South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense is currently performing Harmonica OS while the postal service of the country is testing TMAX OS.
Special matters in ministries and agencies that depend on Windows will be excluded in the transition.
“Through the introduction of open OS, we will eliminate the dependencies of certain companies and reduce our budget, we will work closely with the relevant ministries to help the government demand for open OS become an opportunity for relevant domestic companies to participate in the market and invest in technology, helping to expand the private cloud market and create a new software ecosystem.
Choi Chang-hyuk, director of the Ministry of Electronic Affairs
The government has plans to implement a Desktop as a Service (DaaS) that will be used as a virtual PC environment running on a private cloud by the second half of 2020 and by the end of 2020 the ActiveX plugins will be removed. The South Korean ministry expects to save up to 72% of the cost of buying two independent PCs for business and the internet by implementing the DaaS system.
The government will develop security standards and standard models for DaaS and will start pilot tests this October.
