Previously, Amazon's cloud computing platform AWS was attacked by drones at three data centers in the Middle East (one of which was affected by explosive debris). Initially, Amazon did not explain the cause of the fire in the data center. Later, other availability zones in the central United Arab Emirates and Bahrain data centers were also attacked. Amazon later admitted that the damage was caused by military weapons.
The attacks included Availability Zones 2 and 3 of AWS's data center in the central United Arab Emirates, which were struck by drones, causing structural damage. AWS's data center in Bahrain was also attacked, but a drone exploded at the time. The data center was affected by the explosion, causing physical damage to the infrastructure and power outages.
In the past, such data centers were usually not within the scope of attacks during wars. The main reason was that data centers were usually civilian facilities. Occasionally, they were affected if they were damaged. There were no specific attacks on data centers. However, the attack on AWS data centers has changed this history.
Iran's Fars News Agency recently announced that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) deliberately used drones to attack Amazon's data centers because these data centers provide military and intelligence operations support for the United States and its allies.
However, this news is only news released by Fars News Agency and not official information from Iran. Iranian officials have not claimed responsibility for the outage of AWS data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, so this may also be a unilateral speculation by local media.
The damage to Amazon's data centers has had a serious impact on customers in the Middle East. These data centers provide network service support to multinational companies in the Middle East. After the damage to the data centers, the services provided by a large number of companies have been interrupted, seriously affecting the provision of external services.
Therefore, Amazon now bluntly recommends that customers make backups and migrate to other unaffected data centers. After all, Amazon cannot ensure that these subsequent data centers in the Middle East can still provide stable and reliable operations.
It is also unclear whether the war will affect Amazon and Microsoft's data center investments in the Middle East. Amazon has previously promised to invest US$5.3 billion in Saudi Arabia to launch new availability zones, and Microsoft plans to invest US$15.2 billion in the construction of data centers in the United Arab Emirates from 2023 to 2029.