Drone Strikes Cripple AWS Data Centers Across UAE and Bahrain
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has confirmed that multiple data centers in the Gulf states were damaged by drone attacks. Two facilities in the United Arab Emirates were directly hit, and another facility in Bahrain suffered damage from a drone strike in close proximity. The incidents occurred over the weekend in connection with the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.
Extent of Damage
The drone attacks have had significant impacts on AWS infrastructure. According to the company’s official statement, the strikes caused structural damage to buildings and disrupted power supply. Additionally, necessary firefighting measures caused water damage to technical equipment. AWS is working closely with local authorities and prioritizes employee safety during restoration efforts.
In the ME-CENTRAL-1 region (UAE), two of three availability zones (mec1-az2 and mec1-az3) are significantly impaired. The third zone (mec1-az1) continues to function normally, though some services are indirectly affected by dependencies on the affected zones. In the ME-SOUTH-1 region (Bahrain), one facility is impaired, though the impact there is lesser.
AWS has committed to providing regular updates on restoration progress.
Affected Services
The outages affect a wide range of AWS services. In total, 25 services are completely disrupted and 34 others are impaired. Customers are experiencing elevated error rates and limited availability in the following services:
- Amazon EC2
- Amazon S3
- Amazon DynamoDB
- AWS Lambda
- Amazon Kinesis
- Amazon CloudWatch
- Amazon RDS
- AWS Management Console and CLI
Recovery Measures
AWS is pursuing a two-pronged approach to service restoration. In parallel with physical repairs to damaged infrastructure, teams are working on software-based solutions that could function independently of full facility restoration.
Software-Based Measures
The focus is on restoring core services such as Amazon S3 and Amazon DynamoDB, as these serve as the foundation for many other AWS services. AWS is implementing updates to make S3 operational within current infrastructure constraints and to repair impaired DynamoDB tables. For other affected services, targeted software updates are being deployed to reduce error rates and restore functionality.
Additionally, AWS is working to restore access to the Management Console and CLI through network changes that redirect traffic away from affected infrastructure. The company is also prioritizing the restoration of services and tools that enable customers to back up their data and migrate applications from the affected regions.
Physical Restoration
However, full restoration of some services depends on repairs to physical infrastructure. AWS estimates that restoring power and connectivity will take at least one day. Due to the extent of physical damage, full restoration is expected to take significantly longer.
Recommendations for Customers
AWS has issued a clear warning to customers with workloads in the region. The company notes that the operational environment in the Middle East remains unpredictable due to the ongoing conflict.
Customers are strongly advised to:
- Back up data immediately
- Consider migrating workloads to alternative AWS regions
- Activate disaster recovery plans
- Restore from remote backups in other regions
- Update applications to redirect traffic away from affected regions
As alternative regions, AWS recommends locations in the United States, Europe, or the Asia-Pacific region depending on latency and data residency requirements.
Background and Context
The drone attacks are connected to the escalation of the conflict over Iran. Israel and the USA began attacks on the Islamic Republic on Saturday, during which the previous head of state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed. Tehran responded with air strikes using drones and missiles against various states in the region. Since then, there have been numerous reports from the Gulf states of missile and drone strikes.
