Amazon's AWS cloud computing division has reported significant power and connectivity disruptions at its data centre facilities in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on Monday. These outages occurred in the wake of Iranian retaliatory strikes that have impacted critical infrastructure across the wider Gulf region, including airports, ports, and residential areas.
Direct Impact on Data Centre Operations
Two separate data centre zones in the UAE were completely without power, with one facility suffering direct damage after unidentified 'objects' struck the building, resulting in visible sparks and a fire. AWS has also confirmed a localised power issue affecting one of its zones in Bahrain, compounding the regional service interruptions.
Company Response and Recovery Timeline
In response to the outages, Amazon AWS has advised its customers to temporarily rely on services hosted in other, unaffected regions to maintain operational continuity. The company stated that full recovery of the impacted data centres is anticipated to require 'multiple hours', highlighting the severity of the infrastructure damage and the complexity of restoration efforts.
The disruptions underscore the vulnerability of critical digital infrastructure to geopolitical conflicts and physical attacks. As cloud services become increasingly integral to global business operations, such incidents raise concerns about data security, service reliability, and the resilience of tech hubs in volatile regions.
