Iranian Strikes Render AWS Availability Zones in Bahrain and Dubai 'Hard Down,' Amazon Advises Customer Migration
Key Takeaways
- ▸Two AWS availability zones in Bahrain and Dubai are 'hard down' due to Iranian military strikes, with an extended outage expected
- ▸Amazon has advised internal teams to deprioritize these regions and is actively migrating customer workloads to alternate AWS regions globally
- ▸The Iranian military has indicated it may target other major U.S. tech companies including Microsoft, Google, and Apple
Summary
Iranian military strikes have caused significant damage to Amazon Web Services infrastructure in the Middle East, leaving availability zones in Bahrain and Dubai severely impaired or completely non-operational. According to internal Amazon communications, the company expects these regions to remain "unavailable for an extended period" and has advised employees to deprioritize both regions while helping customers migrate their workloads to alternate AWS locations. The Bahrain facilities have sustained multiple hits, including a Wednesday strike that caused a fire, while UAE facilities also experienced repeated damage. Amazon has not provided a timeline for when the affected regions will return to normal operations, though the company states it is actively working to free up capacity and support affected customers in transitioning to other parts of the world.
- This represents a significant geopolitical risk to cloud infrastructure in the Middle East as the regional conflict continues into its sixth week
