Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a series of disruptions within its cloud platform in the Middle East on Sunday and Monday. This occurred after incidents at data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The problems led to power outages, connectivity issues, and reduced service availability in multiple Availability Zones.
The first incident occurred on Sunday afternoon at an AWS data center in the UAE. According to information shared by the company via its status channels, parts of an Availability Zone were hit by objects, causing sparks and fire. The fire department then decided to completely shut off the power supply to the facility in order to safely fight the fire. As a result, cloud services in the region were temporarily unavailable. This was reported by Bloomberg.
Local power problems
On Monday, it became apparent that the impact was greater than initially reported. Two Availability Zones in the UAE were without power, making recovery work more complex and time-consuming. Within AWS, a representative indicated that these were separate zones within the same region. Later that day, the company reported that another zone had experienced a local power problem, unrelated to the original fire, but within the same geographical region.
AWS reported some recovery during the course of Monday, but at the same time warned customers that it could take several more hours for services to return to normal. Users were advised to switch to other AWS regions where possible to limit the impact on business processes. This advice underscores the fact that the disruption was not expected to be short-lived.
In addition to the problems in the United Arab Emirates, AWS confirmed that an Availability Zone in Bahrain was also experiencing a local power supply issue. Initially, there was talk of investigating network and electricity failures, but it later became clear that it was actually a power outage. The company did not provide any further explanation about the technical cause of this outage.
Amazon does not comment on geopolitical situation
The incidents took place against the backdrop of large-scale military actions in the Middle East. During the same period, several countries in the Gulf region were hit by missile and drone attacks as part of Iranian retaliatory actions. When asked, AWS refused to confirm or deny that there was a direct link between the attacks and the problems at the data centers. Reuters adds that, even after repeated questions, the company did not provide any clarity about a possible relationship between the geopolitical situation and the disruptions.
Amazon Web Services provides cloud services to a wide range of organizations in the UAE, including major financial and industrial players. The company has 123 Availability Zones spread across 39 regions worldwide. The incident shows that even highly distributed cloud infrastructure can be vulnerable to physical disruptions in regions where military conflicts are taking place, with direct consequences for the availability of digital services.