Iranian drone strikes damage AWS Middle East data centers and require months of repairs
Amazon Web Services (AWS) faces months of repairs to war-damaged data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain following Iranian drone strikes, leaving cloud customers in the Middle East without full service restoration for potentially half a year. The company has halted billing for affected users while urging them to migrate workloads to other regions, as reported by Ars Technica and echoed on Slashdot.
The strikes, which occurred two months ago amid escalating conflict involving Iran, the U.S., and Israel, targeted three facilities: two in the UAE (part of the ME-CENTRAL-1 region) and one in Bahrain (ME-SOUTH-1). Direct hits caused structural damage to buildings, while a nearby strike in Bahrain disrupted surrounding infrastructure. AWS detailed failures including power delivery outages, cooling system breakdowns, fires, and water damage from suppression efforts, forcing server shutdowns to avoid further hardware loss.
These incidents triggered widespread outages, with customers reporting higher error rates in key services like Amazon EC2 virtual machines, S3 storage, DynamoDB databases, and networking APIs. Organizations reliant on these Middle East regions—often for low-latency operations in finance, government, and tech—faced degraded performance and interruptions. Amazon's dashboard confirms the prolonged disruption, with full recovery now projected several more months out due to the complexity of physical repairs.
In response, AWS activated emergency protocols, coordinating with local authorities to stabilize networks, deploy temporary fixes, and assist migrations. "The AWS Bahrain Region has been disrupted as a result of the ongoing conflict," the company stated, noting many customers have already shifted applications elsewhere. Engineers prioritized repairing power and cooling systems while safeguarding personnel amid continued drone activity.
The outage underscores the vulnerability of global cloud infrastructure to geopolitical tensions, affecting businesses across the region and beyond that depend on AWS for critical operations. Repair costs are mounting for Amazon, which is absorbing expenses without charging disrupted clients. No firm timeline for normal operations exists, as ongoing war risks could extend delays, with AWS emphasizing employee safety in its recovery efforts. Customers are advised to monitor updates via the AWS dashboard for migration guidance.