Exclusive-Amazon says AWS' Bahrain region 'disrupted' following drone activity

By Greg Bensinger

 

SAN FRANCISCO, (Reuters) - Amazon said on Monday its Amazon Web Services region in Bahrain has been "disrupted" amid the current conflict in the Middle East, marking the second time in a month that its operations have been affected by the war.

 

The disruption is due to drone activity in the area, an Amazon spokesperson said, following a Reuters inquiry. Reuters is first to report on the disruption. As of Monday night, AWS had not updated its status page to reflect the impact.

 

Amazon did not immediately respond to a query on whether its Bahrain facility was directly hit by a drone attack or if the disruption was due to nearby strikes.

 

The company said it is helping to migrate customers to alternate AWS regions while it recovers, though it did not provide additional details such as the extent of the damage or how long it anticipates the disruption to last.

 

"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 Monday night.

 

AWS is Amazon’s cloud computing unit and critical for the operation of many well-known websites and government operations. It is also the company’s main driver of profits.

 

The disruption is the second instance of drone activity affecting AWS’ Bahrain region since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Earlier this month AWS reported that facilities in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates had lost power and it was working to recover, including transferring computing workloads to other regions.

 

The strike on the UAE facility was the first time military action had disrupted a major U.S. tech company’s data center, Reuters reported earlier in March. Amazon said it anticipated a "prolonged" recovery due to structural damage.

 

"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 earlier this month on its status page.

 

Amazon said at the time that the Bahrain region was impacted by a drone strike in close proximity to one of its facilities.

 

(Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by Sonali Paul)