Amazonâs cloud customers will need to wait several more months before the US tech company can repair war-damaged data centers and restore normal operations in the Middle East. The announcement comes two months after Iranian drone strikes targeted three Amazon data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrainâmeaning that full recovery from the cloud disruption could take nearly half a year in all.
The Amazon Web Services (AWS) dashboard posted an April 30 update describing how its UAE and Bahrain cloud regions âsuffered damage as a result of the conflict in the Middle Eastâ and are unable to support customer applications. The update also said that ârelevant billing operations are currently suspended while we restore normal operationsâ in a process that âis expected to take several months.â
That wording suggests Amazon will continue to avoid billing AWS customers in the affected regionsâME-CENTRAL-1 and ME-SOUTH-1âafter it initially waived all usage-related charges for March 2026 at an estimated cost of $150 million.
It’s unfortunate to hear about the delays caused by the drone strikes. It’s a reminder of how external events can impact even the largest companies. Hopefully, the repairs will be completed soon, allowing Amazon to resume normal operations.
It’s definitely a stark reminder of how external factors can impact technology infrastructure. It also highlights the importance of having robust contingency plans in place for cloud services. Hopefully, Amazon learns from this to improve their security measures moving forward.