Several Amazon Web Services (AWS) Availability Zones in the Middle East are facing outages due to an object striking a data center in the UAE amid escalating regional tensions following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. The incident began at 12:51 UTC, when AWS reported outages in the mec1-az2 zone. Approximately five hours later, it was confirmed that an object had struck the facility, causing sparks and a fire, prompting local authorities to cut power.
This incident is part of broader retaliation from Iran, which has launched missile and drone strikes targeting U.S. interests across the Gulf, including facilities in Bahrain, where another AWS data center is also experiencing outages due to a power issue.
Both AWS zones in the UAE are significantly affecting services like S3 storage, with most failures attributed to the ongoing conflict. Amazon anticipates that repairs could take up to a day, involving coordination with local authorities.
The disruptions have affected regional services, including software providers like Snowflake. AWS has warned that the situation remains unpredictable and advised customers to back up data and consider relocating workloads.
The Middle East has seen a surge in technology investments, with numerous U.S. cloud providers operating amidst ongoing regional conflicts. AWS has confirmed that drone attacks are behind the recent disruptions, emphasizing the need for customers to prepare for potential further issues.
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