Omanghana
Amazon Web Services has confirmed that it cannot restore access to its cloud-computing region in Bahrain or recover resources stored exclusively in one Availability Zone in the United Arab Emirates following extensive damage caused by the regional conflict involving Iran.
The company said the destruction in Bahrain affected multiple Availability Zones and exceeded the level of failure its regional and multi-zone systems were designed to withstand. Availability Zones are separate clusters of data centers within a geographical region that allow customers to distribute applications and data for greater resilience.
The disruptions began in March 2026 after United States and Israeli attacks on Iran prompted retaliatory Iranian missile and drone strikes against Israel and Gulf countries hosting US military facilities.
AWS previously reported that two of its facilities in the UAE were directly hit, while a strike near one of its facilities in Bahrain caused physical damage. The incidents resulted in structural destruction, interrupted electricity supplies and water damage caused by fire-suppression operations.
Following the initial damage to one Availability Zone in Bahrain, AWS advised customers to transfer their workloads and backups to other regions. Most affected clients reportedly completed the migration before a second Availability Zone was disrupted in April, leaving the entire Bahrain region unavailable.
AWS said it had assessed the damaged infrastructure and exhausted all available options for recovering resources and data that had not been moved before the region went offline. Customers with remote backups have been assisted in rebuilding their operations elsewhere, while alternative solutions have been explored for those affected by inaccessible information.
In the UAE, the permanent access problem applies specifically to data and resources hosted only in the zone identified as mec1-az2. AWS continues working to replace damaged infrastructure and recover services across the wider UAE region, including its other Availability Zones.
The company suspended relevant billing operations while the affected infrastructure remained unavailable. It expects to issue another update on recovery work in the UAE in the coming months and provide further information about Bahrain operations in early 2027.
Most customers have restored their active workloads in alternative AWS regions, according to the company. However, the incident has highlighted the importance of maintaining backups across separate geographical regions rather than relying solely on multiple facilities within the same region.
The destruction has also raised broader concerns about the physical vulnerability of cloud and artificial-intelligence infrastructure during armed conflicts. Although cloud services are designed with multiple layers of redundancy, simultaneous damage across several facilities can exceed the protection offered by conventional disaster-recovery systems.
Source: Omanghana
