Amazon AWS Bahrain Disruption: A fresh wave of geopolitical tension has now reached the heart of global cloud infrastructure. US-based tech giant Amazon has confirmed that its Amazon Web Services (AWS) region in Bahrain was disrupted following drone activity linked to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. This marks the second such incident affecting operations in the past month, Reuters reported.
What makes this episode more unsettling is the uncertainty surrounding the impact. While Amazon acknowledged that the disruption coincided with drone movement in the area, it stopped short of confirming whether its Bahrain facility was directly hit or simply affected by nearby strikes, leaving questions over the vulnerability of critical tech infrastructure in conflict zones.
Amazon said in a statement that “As this situation evolves, and as we have advised before, we request that those with workloads in the affected regions continue to migrate to other locations.” The company added that it is assisting customers in shifting workloads to alternate regions of Amazon Web Services (AWS) while recovery efforts continue. However, it did not specify the extent of the damage or provide a timeline for when operations might be fully restored, Reuters reported.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud division of Amazon, supports many major websites, businesses, and government services around the world. It is also the company’s biggest source of profit. According to Reuters, this is the second time drone activity has disrupted AWS infrastructure in the region since the start of the US-Israel conflict involving Iran. Earlier this month, AWS facilities in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) faced power outages after being affected by military activity.
Reuters previously reported that the strike on the UAE facility marked the first known instance of military action disrupting a major US technology company’s data centre. At the time, Amazon said the damage was significant and warned of a “prolonged” recovery period. “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,” AWS said on its status page earlier this month, according to Reuters. Amazon had also noted that the Bahrain region had been affected by a drone strike near one of its facilities, Reuters added. (With ANI Inputs)
