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The US and Israel’s illegal war on Iran was always going to have unintended consequences, one of which was the drone strikes on AWS datacentres in the Middle East. On March 1, Amazon said two datacentres in the UAE suffered direct hits, and a drone struck next to its DC in Bahrain. The strikes caused structural damage, disrupted power, and, in some cases, the fire suppression system was triggered, causing water damage. Customers were urged to migrate their workloads to other regions, in Europe, the US, or Asia Pacific, “as appropriate for your latency and data residency requirements”. Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency claimed the strikes on AWS’ datacentre drew attention to the role the company played in “supporting the enemy’s military and intelligence activities”. Fars claimed to have also struck a Microsoft DC, which wasn’t true.

The strike on the AWS facilities is the first time to date that a datacentre has been struck by an aggressor. In the gentler time of last December, AWS boss Matt Garman was bullish on AWS’ buildout in the Middle East, but December now seems a very long time ago.