Amazon's AWS is unable to restore access to Bahrain, one UAE cloud data zone after war damage
· CNA · JoinRead a summary of this article on FAST.
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST Tap here to return to FAST
FAST
Sept 15 : Amazon Web Services cannot restore access to its cloud-computing facility in Bahrain and one of three data-hosting zones in the United Arab Emirates following damage during the Iran war, according to a status update seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
Amazon's cloud computing unit AWS said the damage in Bahrain spanned multiple so-called availability zones, which are clusters of one or more data centres in the same geographic region.
"The damage to our infrastructure spanned multiple Availability Zones and exceeded what our regional and multi-AZ services are designed to withstand," AWS said in the status update, which Reuters was first to report. AWS said it was helping Bahrain-based customers to re-establish operations in other regions.
In the UAE, AWS said it was unable to restore access to resources and data hosted exclusively in one availability zone, known as mec1-az2. It is continuing to work on recovering resources across the wider UAE region and in the other two affected zones.
CNA Games
Guess Word
Crack the word, one row at a time
Buzzword
Create words using the given letters
Mini Sudoku
Tiny puzzle, mighty brain teaser
Mini Crossword
Small grid, big challenge
Word Search
Spot as many words as you can
Show More
Show Less
The disruptions began in March following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, which prompted Tehran to retaliate with missile and drone strikes on Israel and Gulf states hosting U.S. military bases. AWS said at the time that two of its facilities in the UAE had been directly struck, while a drone strike close to one of its facilities in Bahrain had physically damaged its infrastructure. The AWS outages affected some banking operations at the time, Reuters has reported, citing a person familiar with the situation.
The attacks have raised questions about the resilience of the Gulf's rapidly expanding cloud and artificial-intelligence infrastructure. The UAE is revising plans for a major AI data-centre project following the Iranian attacks, including by considering dispersing facilities and using underground and blast-resistant infrastructure, Reuters reported last week.
After the first availability zone in Bahrain was damaged in March, AWS began recommending that customers migrate their workloads to other regions, it said in Tuesday's update. Most did so before the Bahrain region became unavailable following disruption to a second availability zone in April.
AWS said it had since supported customers in re-establishing operations in alternative regions, using backups where available or implementing alternative solutions to mitigate the impact of inaccessible data.
The company said it had assessed all affected infrastructure and exhausted every option for restoring data and resources that had not been migrated before the Bahrain region became unavailable.
AWS said it remained committed to supporting customers in both countries.
In the UAE, the company said it was working to replace affected infrastructure and would provide an update on restoration of services in the coming months. It also said it would provide a further update in early 2027 for Bahrain operations.
The company said it had notified the relevant authorities in both countries and continued to work with them.
Newsletter
Week in Review
Subscribe to our Chief Editor’s Week in Review
Our chief editor shares analysis and picks of the week's biggest news every Saturday.
Sign up for our newsletters
Get our pick of top stories and thought-provoking articles in your inbox
Get the CNA app
Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories
Get WhatsApp alerts
Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app