AWS says several facilities damaged by drone strikes in March cannot be restored, while recovery efforts continue at two UAE sites.
Web Desk: Amazon Web Services (AWS) has said it is unable to reactivate several data-centre sites in Bahrain and one facility in the United Arab Emirates after the facilities were damaged by drone strikes in March.
The company said a detailed assessment found that it could not restore access to resources and data hosted exclusively in the affected Bahrain region. AWS operates three sites in Bahrain.
UAE and Bahrain facilities damaged
AWS said drone strikes in early March damaged two of its data centres in the UAE and a facility in Bahrain.
The company attributed the incidents to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The strikes occurred shortly after the United States and Israel began attacks on Iran, according to AWS.
In Bahrain, AWS said it had exhausted available options for restoring data and resources that had not been migrated before the region became unavailable.
Recovery continues at UAE sites
AWS said recovery work is continuing at two sites in the UAE.
The company said most customers affected in the UAE have been able to re-establish operations in other AWS regions by restoring backups or copying data that remained accessible.
The company had previously warned customers affected by the disruption to migrate workloads to alternative AWS regions while recovery efforts continued.
Impact on cloud services
AWS is one of the world’s major cloud-computing providers, competing with Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Its infrastructure supports websites, applications, enterprise systems and generative artificial intelligence services.
The disruption highlights the vulnerability of critical digital infrastructure to physical damage during regional conflicts. Reuters reported that the outages affected sectors including banking and prompted customers to move workloads to other regions.
The developments also come as Gulf states reassess the resilience and physical security of data-centre infrastructure following the attacks. Reuters reported that the UAE is reviewing plans for AI data-centre infrastructure, including greater geographic distribution and additional protection against potential missile and drone threats.
AWS has not said that all affected UAE infrastructure is permanently lost. The company continues recovery work at two UAE sites, while access to resources and data exclusively hosted in the affected Bahrain region cannot be restored.
