San Francisco (California) [US], March 24 (ANI): Amazon (AMZN.O) on Monday (local time) said its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing region in Bahrain has been disrupted due to drone activity linked to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, marking the second such incident affecting operations in the past month, Reuters reported.
An Amazon spokesperson told Reuters that the disruption occurred amid drone activity in the area, though the company did not immediately confirm whether the Bahrain facility itself was directly hit or if the impact was caused by nearby strikes, Reuters reported.
“As this situation evolves and, as we have advised before, we request those with workloads in the affected regions continue to migrate to other locations”, Amazon said in a statement on Monday night (local time).
The company said it is assisting customers in shifting workloads to alternate AWS regions 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.
AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, powers numerous major websites, enterprises and government services globally and is also the company’s primary profit driver.
According to Reuters, this is the second time drone activity has affected AWS infrastructure in the region since the outbreak of the US-Israel war on Iran. Earlier this month, AWS facilities in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) experienced power outages after being impacted 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 in proximity to one of its facilities, according to Reuters. (ANI)