March 24 — Amazon said Monday that drone activity tied to the ongoing Middle East conflict disrupted its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud region in Bahrain, marking the second such incident to affect operations this month.
A company spokesperson said the disruption coincided with drone activity in the area but did not immediately confirm whether the Bahrain facility itself was hit or if nearby attacks caused the impact. Amazon urged customers with workloads in the affected region to migrate them to alternate locations while the situation evolves and recovery continues.
Amazon is assisting customers in moving workloads to other AWS regions but has not provided details on the extent of any damage or a timeline for full restoration. AWS, Amazon’s cloud unit, runs many major websites, enterprise systems and government services worldwide and is a primary source of the company’s profits.
Earlier this month, AWS facilities in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates experienced power outages after being affected by military activity following the outbreak of regional hostilities. Reuters and other news outlets reported the strike on the UAE facility as the first known instance of military action disrupting a major U.S. tech company’s data center. Amazon previously described damage at the UAE site as significant and warned recovery could be prolonged.
Amazon’s status updates said recent strikes have in some cases caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to infrastructure, and required fire suppression efforts that led to additional water damage. The company has also said the Bahrain region was impacted by a drone strike in proximity to one of its facilities earlier in the month.
AWS customers relying on the Bahrain region have been encouraged to shift critical workloads to other regions to reduce service risk while Amazon continues recovery and assessment efforts.
