Amazon Web Services (AWS) has advised customers in the Middle East to move their workloads to other regions after reported missile and drone attacks damaged its data centers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.
According to an AWS update, the damage occurred during the first wave of attacks launched by Iran following recent strikes by the United States and Israel. Several locations across the Middle East were reportedly targeted during the escalation.
AWS Facilities Damaged
Amazon confirmed that two AWS facilities in the UAE were directly hit. In Bahrain, a nearby drone strike damaged infrastructure connected to an AWS data center.
The company said the strikes caused several problems, including:
- Structural damage to buildings
- Power supply disruptions
- Activation of fire suppression systems
- Water damage inside some infrastructure
These issues temporarily affected services in the region.
Services Slowly Recovering
AWS said some services are gradually coming back online. However, the company strongly recommends that customers move their workloads to other AWS regions for now.
Customers are advised to restore services from backups stored in different regions such as:
- United States
- Europe
- Asia Pacific
The company said this will help reduce downtime and keep applications running smoothly.
Disaster Recovery Plans Activated
AWS urged customers to activate their disaster recovery plans. Businesses should recover data from remote backups and update their applications to send traffic to unaffected regions.
Updates about the situation will be shared directly with affected customers through the AWS Personal Health Dashboard.
Tech Companies Warn Customers
Several technology companies that rely on AWS have also warned users in the Middle East about service disruptions.
Snowflake, Red Hat, and IoT platform EMQX have advised customers to start their failover procedures immediately.
Snowflake said some users may currently face problems such as:
- Unable to log in
- Failed queries
- Difficulty managing data
The company said there is no confirmed timeline yet for full service restoration.
Power Issues Continue in UAE Region
EMQX reported that AWS has confirmed an additional power issue affecting Availability Zone mec1-az3 in the UAE region (ME-CENTRAL-1).
At the moment:
- Only mec1-az1 is fully operational
- New cloud instances cannot be launched in the region
- Services like EC2, S3, and DynamoDB are experiencing higher error rates and delays
AWS says recovery work is still in progress, and further updates will be provided as the situation develops.
