Amazon says restoring damaged Middle East cloud operations to take months

Amazon said on Thursday that restoring cloud computing operations in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, which have been damaged during the conflict in the Middle East, ‌is expected ⁠to take ⁠several months. Amazon's data centres in the region were hit by Iranian drone strikes in early March, disrupting cloud services.

Amazon Web Services, in a status update on its website, recommended customers migrate all accessible resources to other regions and restore inaccessible ⁠resources from ‌remote backups as soon as possible. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the update was related ⁠to the March operational issues. AWS is the world's largest cloud computing provider. Its customers include companies such as Netflix, BMW and Pfizer, as well as financial institutions, media groups and public sector organisations.

AWS is Amazon's most profitable segment.


The AWS status page lists 31 services ‌in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates as disrupted as of the week of April 30. Several of ⁠these services have been disrupted since early March, according to the status page.

The firm said the damage to its UAE and Bahrain operations has led to the suspension of billing operations in the region.