Amazon has confirmed that its cloud infrastructure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been “disrupted” in Bahrain amid the ongoing Middle East conflict. According to a Reuters report, the company said that it is working to recover the service and is meanwhile helping its customers to migrate to alternate AWS regions.
“As this situation evolves and, as we have advised before, we request those with workloads in the affected regions continue to migrate to other locations,” Amazon said in a statement as quotes by the news agency. Additional details about the extent of the damage or how long the disruption may last are not known yet. AWS is Amazon’s cloud computing unit and critical for the operation of global websites and government operations.
It is also the company’s main driver of profits.
What AWS status page says
As per AWS health status page, several services in Bahrain are currently facing disruptions due to an operational issue, and users may experience interruptions or limited access.
Why AWS’ Bahrain region is disrupted
The Reuters report quotes an Amazon spokesperson who said that the disruption is due to drone activity in the area. The latest disruption marks the second time when AWS series have been impacted since the start of US-Israel-Iran war.
On March 3, the company confirmed that two of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and a facility in Bahrain were damaged by drone strikes, taking the facilities offline.Amazon Web Services (AWS) update then said that the outages were caused by drone strikes tied to the “ongoing conflict in the Middle East.” AWS said, “In the UAE, two of our facilities were directly struck, while in Bahrain, a drone strike in close proximity to one of our facilities caused physical impacts to our infrastructure.”
It added, “These strikes have caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage.
”The company then warned that instability is likely to continue in the Middle East, making operations “unpredictable.” AWS added notices to the top of its marketplaces in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE alerting customers of an “extended delivery time in your area.”
