Observed Signal · Mar 3, 2026 · Technical Incident · Source: Trending Topics · Impact: 4/5 · Sentiment: Negative
AWS Data Centers in UAE Severely Disrupted by Drone Strikes
Amazon Web Services confirmed that multiple data centers in the Gulf states were damaged by drone attacks. Two facilities in the United Arab Emirates were directly hit, and one in Bahrain suffered damage from a nearby drone impact. The incidents occurred over the weekend amid escalating Middle East conflict. Structural damage, power interruptions, and water damage from firefighting efforts affected the infrastructure. In the ME-CENTRAL-1 region (UAE), two of three availability zones (mec1-az2 and mec1-az3) are significantly impaired, while the third zone (mec1-az1) operates normally. In ME-SOUTH-1 (Bahrain), one facility is affected with lesser impact. 25 AWS services are fully interrupted and 34 more are impaired, including EC2, S3, DynamoDB, Lambda, and CloudWatch. AWS is working on physical repairs and software-based workarounds, estimating at least a day for power and connectivity restoration but longer for full recovery. Customers are advised to back up data, migrate workloads, and activate disaster recovery plans.
Major cloud infrastructure outage at AWS disrupts critical services for a vast number of businesses globally, potentially impacting ad tech operations and overall digital economy during a geopolitical crisis.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Two AWS data centers in the UAE were directly hit by drone strikes, and one in Bahrain was damaged.
- In the ME-CENTRAL-1 region, two of three availability zones (mec1-az2 and mec1-az3) are significantly impaired.
- A total of 25 AWS services are fully interrupted and 34 others are affected, including EC2, S3, DynamoDB, Lambda, and CloudWatch.
- AWS recommends customers back up data, migrate workloads to alternative regions, and activate disaster recovery plans.
- The incidents are related to the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East involving Iran.
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